On Fri, 2 Sep 2016 13:55:19 -0400 Laine Stump <laine@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 09/01/2016 12:59 PM, Alex Williamson wrote: > > On Thu, 1 Sep 2016 18:47:06 +0200 > > Michal Privoznik <mprivozn@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > >> On 31.08.2016 08:12, Tian, Kevin wrote: > >>>> From: Alex Williamson [mailto:alex.williamson@xxxxxxxxxx] > >>>> Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2016 12:17 AM > >>>> > >>>> Hi folks, > >>>> > >>>> At KVM Forum we had a BoF session primarily around the mediated device > >>>> sysfs interface. I'd like to share what I think we agreed on and the > >>>> "problem areas" that still need some work so we can get the thoughts > >>>> and ideas from those who weren't able to attend. > >>>> > >>>> DanPB expressed some concern about the mdev_supported_types sysfs > >>>> interface, which exposes a flat csv file with fields like "type", > >>>> "number of instance", "vendor string", and then a bunch of type > >>>> specific fields like "framebuffer size", "resolution", "frame rate > >>>> limit", etc. This is not entirely machine parsing friendly and sort of > >>>> abuses the sysfs concept of one value per file. Example output taken > >>>> from Neo's libvirt RFC: > >>>> > >>>> 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 > >>>> > >>>> The create/destroy then looks like this: > >>>> > >>>> echo "$mdev_UUID:vendor_specific_argument_list" > > >>>> /sys/bus/pci/devices/.../mdev_create > >>>> > >>>> echo "$mdev_UUID:vendor_specific_argument_list" > > >>>> /sys/bus/pci/devices/.../mdev_destroy > >>>> > >>>> "vendor_specific_argument_list" is nebulous. > >>>> > >>>> So the idea to fix this is to explode this into a directory structure, > >>>> something like: > >>>> > >>>> ├── mdev_destroy > >>>> └── mdev_supported_types > >>>> ├── 11 > >>>> │ ├── create > >>>> │ ├── description > >>>> │ └── max_instances > >>>> ├── 12 > >>>> │ ├── create > >>>> │ ├── description > >>>> │ └── max_instances > >>>> └── 13 > >>>> ├── create > >>>> ├── description > >>>> └── max_instances > >>>> > >>>> Note that I'm only exposing the minimal attributes here for simplicity, > >>>> the other attributes would be included in separate files and we would > >>>> require vendors to create standard attributes for common device classes. > >>> I like this idea. All standard attributes are reflected into this hierarchy. > >>> In the meantime, can we still allow optional vendor string in create > >>> interface? libvirt doesn't need to know the meaning, but allows upper > >>> layer to do some vendor specific tweak if necessary. > >> This is not the best idea IMO. Libvirt is there to shadow differences > >> between hypervisors. While doing that, we often hide differences between > >> various types of HW too. Therefore in order to provide good abstraction > >> we should make vendor specific string as small as possible (ideally an > >> empty string). I mean I see it as bad idea to expose "vgpu_type_id" from > >> example above in domain XML. What I think the better idea is if we let > >> users chose resolution and frame buffer size, e.g.: <video > >> resolution="1024x768" framebuffer="16"/> (just the first idea that came > >> to my mind while writing this e-mail). The point is, XML part is > >> completely free of any vendor-specific knobs. > > That's not really what you want though, a user actually cares whether > > they get an Intel of NVIDIA vGPU, we can't specify it as just a > > resolution and framebuffer size. The user also doesn't want the model > > changing each time the VM is started, so not only do you *need* to know > > the vendor, you need to know the vendor model > > as well as any other configuration that might change over time. A > similar issue - libvirt really doesn't know or care what a "chassis" is > in an ioh3420 (a PCIe root-port), but it's a guest-visible property of > the device that qemu can set (and could presumably decide to change the > default setting of some time in the future), so libvirt has to set a > value for it in the config, and specify it on the qemu commandline. > > What I'm getting at is that if there is anything in the vendor-specific > string that changes guest ABI, and that could change over time, then > libvirt can't just rely on it remaining the same, it needs to have it > saved in the config for later reproduction, even if it doesn't > understand the contents. > > (for that matter, you may want to consider some type of "versioned vGPU > type" similar to qemu's versions machinetypes (e.g. "pc-i440fx-2.6", > which has some sort of incompatible ABI differences from > "pc-i440fx-1.4"), where any guest-ABI-changing modifications to the vGPU > would take effect only when the appropriate version of device was > requested. That way a guest originally created to use today's version of > vGPU X in resolution Y would continue to work even if incompatible guest > ABI changes were made in the future.) I fully agree, but I don't know if it's anything we can actually codify, only document that this is the way the vendor driver *should* behave. If the vendor driver modifies the guest visible device without modifying the vendor string... well that's just something they shouldn't have done. Bad vendor. Thanks, Alex -- libvir-list mailing list libvir-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libvir-list