Clarification of Proc Filesystem for PCIe
 

I am relatively new to working with the Linux kernel and had a question about the proc fs and what exactly is going on.

I have been using the proc/bus/pci/xx/xx.x files to read config data (ID's, link status, etc.) for one of my PCI devices but I am curious.. is this proc file actually memory mapped to the device's configuration space? If I write to this proc file am I actually writing to the config registers of the device?

I am curious because I am trying to create a test where I stress the PCI link by writing to the device over the link for an extended period of time and record any correctable errors that occur. It is important that I am actually writing to the device and not just some sort of cached copy of the file somewhere that won't actually stress the link.

Reads and writes are interpreted by kernel code, but generate reads and writes of PCI space.

http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source...i/proc.c?v=4.7

Gotcha - so the proc file can be used as a tool to communicate with PCI space for both reads/writes.

Is there a method for interacting with PCI space that is more preferred by the community rather than using the proc file? Just out of curiosity.