minphys(9F)

xxminphys() is a pointer to a function to be called by physio(9F) or aphysio(9F) to ensure that the size of the requested transfer does not exceed a driver-imposed limit. If the user requests a larger transfer, strategy(9E) will be called repeatedly, requesting no more than the imposed limit at a time. This is important because DMA resources are limited. Drivers for slow devices, such as printers, should be careful not to tie up resources for a long time.

Usually, a driver passes the address of the kernel function minphys(9F), but the driver can define its own xxminphys() routine instead. The job of xxminphys() is to keep the b_bcount field of the buf(9S) structure below a driver limit. There might be additional system limits that the driver should not circumvent, so the driver xxminphys() routine should call the system minphys(9F) routine after setting the b_bcount field and before returning.

Example 10-7 minphys(9F) Routine

#define XXMINVAL (512 << 10)    /* 512 KB */
static void
xxminphys(struct buf *bp)
{
       if (bp->b_bcount > XXMINVAL)
            bp->b_bcount = XXMINVAL
      minphys(bp);
}