Re: [RFC] libvirt vGPU QEMU integration

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On 08/18/2016 12:41 PM, Neo Jia wrote:
Hi libvirt experts,

I am starting this email thread to discuss the potential solution / proposal of
integrating vGPU support into libvirt for QEMU.

Thanks for the detailed description. This is very helpful.



Some quick background, NVIDIA is implementing a VFIO based mediated device
framework to allow people to virtualize their devices without SR-IOV, for
example NVIDIA vGPU, and Intel KVMGT. Within this framework, we are reusing the
VFIO API to process the memory / interrupt as what QEMU does today with passthru
device.

The difference here is that we are introducing a set of new sysfs file for
virtual device discovery and life cycle management due to its virtual nature.

Here is the summary of the sysfs, when they will be created and how they should
be used:

1. Discover mediated device

As part of physical device initialization process, vendor driver will register
their physical devices, which will be used to create virtual device (mediated
device, aka mdev) to the mediated framework.


We've discussed this question offline, but I just want to make sure I understood correctly - all initialization of the physical device on the host is already handled "elsewhere", so libvirt doesn't need to be concerned with any physical device lifecycle or configuration (setting up the number or types of vGPUs), correct? Do you think this would also be the case for other vendors using the same APIs? I guess this all comes down to whether or not the setup of the physical device is defined within the bounds of the common infrastructure/API, or if it's something that's assumed to have just magically happened somewhere else.



Then, the sysfs file "mdev_supported_types" will be available under the physical
device sysfs, and it will indicate the supported mdev and configuration for this
particular physical device, and the content may change dynamically based on the
system's current configurations, so libvirt needs to query this file every time
before create a mdev.

I had originally thought that libvirt would be setting up and managing a pool of virtual devices, similar to what we currently do with SRIOV VFs. But from this it sounds like the management of this pool is completely handled by your drivers (especially since the contents of the pool can apparently completely change at any instant). In one way that makes life easier for libvirt, because it doesn't need to manage anything.

On the other hand, it makes thing less predictable. For example, when libvirt defines a domain, it queries the host system to see what types of devices are legal in guests on this host, and expects those devices to be available at a later time. As I understand it (and I may be completely wrong), when no vGPUs are running on the hardware, there is a choice of several different models of vGPU (like the example you give below), but when the first vGPU is started up, that triggers the host driver to restrict the available models. If that's the case, then a particular vGPU could be "available" when a domain is defined, but not an option by the time the domain is started. That's not a show stopper, but I want to make sure I am understanding everything properly.

Also, is there any information about the maximum number of vGPUs that can be handled by a particular physical device (I think that changes based on which model of vGPU is being used, right?) Or maybe what is the current "load" on a physical device, in case there is more than one and libvirt (or management) wants to make a decision about which one to use?


Note: different vendors might have their own specific configuration sysfs as
well, if they don't have pre-defined types.

For example, we have a NVIDIA Tesla M60 on 86:00.0 here registered, and here is
NVIDIA specific configuration on an idle system.

For example, to query the "mdev_supported_types" on this Tesla M60:

cat /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:86:00.0/mdev_supported_types
# vgpu_type_id, vgpu_type, max_instance, num_heads, frl_config, framebuffer,
max_resolution
11      ,"GRID M60-0B",      16,       2,      45,     512M,    2560x1600
12      ,"GRID M60-0Q",      16,       2,      60,     512M,    2560x1600
13      ,"GRID M60-1B",       8,       2,      45,    1024M,    2560x1600
14      ,"GRID M60-1Q",       8,       2,      60,    1024M,    2560x1600
15      ,"GRID M60-2B",       4,       2,      45,    2048M,    2560x1600
16      ,"GRID M60-2Q",       4,       4,      60,    2048M,    2560x1600
17      ,"GRID M60-4Q",       2,       4,      60,    4096M,    3840x2160
18      ,"GRID M60-8Q",       1,       4,      60,    8192M,    3840x2160

2. Create/destroy mediated device

Two sysfs files are available under the physical device sysfs path : mdev_create
and mdev_destroy

The syntax of creating a mdev is:

     echo "$mdev_UUID:vendor_specific_argument_list" >
/sys/bus/pci/devices/.../mdev_create

The syntax of destroying a mdev is:

     echo "$mdev_UUID:vendor_specific_argument_list" >
/sys/bus/pci/devices/.../mdev_destroy

The $mdev_UUID is a unique identifier for this mdev device to be created, and it
is unique per system.

Is there any reason to try to maintain the same UUID from one run to the next? Or should we completely think of this as a cookie for this time only (so more like a file handle, but we get to pick the value)? (Michal has asked about this in relation to migration, but the question also applies in the general situation of simply stopping and restarting a guest).

Also, is it enforced that "UUID" actually be a 128 bit UUID, or can it be any unique string?


For NVIDIA vGPU, we require a vGPU type identifier (shown as vgpu_type_id in
above Tesla M60 output), and a VM UUID to be passed as
"vendor_specific_argument_list".

If there is no vendor specific arguments required, either "$mdev_UUID" or
"$mdev_UUID:" will be acceptable as input syntax for the above two commands.

To create a M60-4Q device, libvirt needs to do:

     echo "$mdev_UUID:vgpu_type_id=20,vm_uuid=$VM_UUID" >
/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:86\:00.0/mdev_create

Then, you will see a virtual device shows up at:

     /sys/bus/mdev/devices/$mdev_UUID/

For NVIDIA, to create multiple virtual devices per VM, it has to be created
upfront before bringing any of them online.

Regarding error reporting and detection, on failure, write() to sysfs using fd
returns error code, and write to sysfs file through command prompt shows the
string corresponding to error code.

3. Start/stop mediated device

Under the virtual device sysfs, you will see a new "online" sysfs file.

you can do cat /sys/bus/mdev/devices/$mdev_UUID/online to get the current status
of this virtual device (0 or 1), and to start a virtual device or stop a virtual
device you can do:

     echo "1|0" > /sys/bus/mdev/devices/$mdev_UUID/online

libvirt needs to query the current state before changing state.

Note: if you have multiple devices, you need to write to the "online" file
individually.

For NVIDIA, if there are multiple mdev per VM, libvirt needs to bring all of
them "online" before starting QEMU.

4. Launch QEMU/VM

Pass the mdev sysfs path to QEMU as vfio-pci device:

     -device vfio-pci,sysfsdev=/sys/bus/mdev/devices/$mdev_UUID,id=vgpu0

1) I have the same question as Michal - you're passing the path to the sysfs directory for the device to qemu, which implies that the qemu process will need to open/close/read/write files in that directory. Since libvirt is running as root, it can easily do that, but libvirt then runs the qemu process under a different uid and with a different selinux context. We need to make sure that we can change the uid/selinux labelling of the items in sysfs without adverse effect elsewhere.

Also it's important that qemu doesn't need to access anything else outside of this device-specific directory (each qemu process is running with different selinux labeling and potentially a different uid:gid, so if there is any common file/device node that must be accessed directly by qemu, it would need to be safely globally readable/writable.

How does this device show up in the guest? guess it's a PCI device (since you're using vfio-pci :-), and all the standard options for setting PCI address apply. And is this device legacy PCI, or PCI Express? (Or perhaps it changes behavior depending on the type of slot used in the guest?)


5. Shutdown sequence

libvirt needs to shutdown the qemu, bring the virtual device offline, then destroy the
virtual device

6. VM Reset

No change or requirement for libvirt as this will be handled via VFIO reset API
and QEMU process will keep running as before.

7. Hot-plug

It optional for vendors to support hot-plug.

And it is same syntax to create a virtual device for hot-plug.

For hot-unplug, after executing QEMU monitor "device del" command, libvirt needs
to write to "destroy" sysfs to complete hot-unplug process.

Since hot-plug is optional, then mdev_create or mdev_destroy operations may
return an error if it is not supported.


From what I understand here, it sounds like what's needed from libvirt is

1) exposing enough info in the output of nodedev-dumpxml for an application to use it to determine which devices are capable of creating vGPUs, and which models of vGPU they can create.


2) to create+start (then later stop+destroy) individual vGPUs based on [something] in the domain XML. So the question that remains is how to put it in the domain config. My first instinct was to use some variation of <hostdev> (since the backend of it is vfio-pci), but on the other hand hostdev is usually used to take one device that could be used by the host, take it away from the host, and give it to the guest, and that's not exactly what's happening here. So I wonder if there would be any advantage to making this another model of <video> instead.

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