qi_cache_alloc(9)

💅 qi_cache_alloc(9) 💅

okay so bestie, welcome to the Kernel API Manual ✨ — this one's about qi_cache_alloc, and honestly? she's a little workhorse and we're obsessed 🫶

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🌸 NAME 🌸

qi_cache_alloc — grab yourself some buffers from the CAAM-QI cache, no cap 🎀

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

void * qi_cache_alloc (gfp_t flags );

like, that's the whole signature. short and iconic 👑

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🦋 ARGUMENTS 🦋

• flags — these are the flags you'd pass to the equivalent malloc(..) call. yeah, literally that. same energy, different allocator 💫

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so here's the vibe check: you call this when a user of the CAAM-QI (that's caamalg-qi, iykyk) needs data allocated on the hotpath 🔥. and instead of reaching for malloc, you can use the services of the CAAM QI memory cache — which is backed by kmem_cache, fancy ✨.

the buffers come out at a size of 256B, which is genuinely enough room to host 16 SG entries 🎀. like, she's small but she's sufficient, periodt.

returns a pointer to a retrieved buffer on success 💜 — or NULL on failure 😭 (yes, check it, bestie, please)

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• Kernel file ./drivers/crypto/caam/qi.h
• caam_drv_ctx_init(9)
• caam_qi_enqueue(9)
• caam_drv_ctx_busy(9)
• caam_drv_ctx_update(9)
• caam_drv_ctx_rel(9)
• qi_cache_free(9)

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and that's the whole page, bestie 🧚💜 this little gem lives in ./drivers/crypto/caam and it's dated October 2026 — those are the exact source/version + date deets, so don't come for me 💅 slay, go allocate responsibly 🌟