On 07/03/2018 06:36 PM, Tony Krowiak wrote:
On 07/02/2018 07:10 PM, Halil Pasic wrote:
On 06/29/2018 11:11 PM, Tony Krowiak wrote:
This patch provides documentation describing the AP architecture and
design concepts behind the virtualization of AP devices. It also
includes an example of how to configure AP devices for exclusive
use of KVM guests.
Signed-off-by: Tony Krowiak <akrowiak@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
I don't like the design of external interfaces except for:
* cpu model features, and
* reset handling.
In particular:
1) The architecture is such that authorizing access (via APM, AQM and
ADM)
to an AP queue that is currently not configured (e.g. the card not
physically
plugged, or just configured off). That seems to be a perfectly normal use
case.
Your assign operations however enforce that the resource is bound to your
driver, and thus the existence of the resource in the host.
It is clear: we need to avoid passing trough resources to guests that
are not
dedicated for this purpose (e.g. a queue utilized by zcrypt). But IMHO
we need a different mechanism.
Interesting that you wait until v6 to bring this up. I agree, this is a
normal
use case, but there is currently no mechanism in the AP bus for drivers to
reserve devices that are not yet configured. There is proposed solution
in the
works, but until such time that is available the only choice is to disallow
assignment of AP queues to a guest that are not bound to the vfio_ap
device driver.
2) I see no benefit in deferring the exclusivity check to
vfio_ap_mdev_open().
The downside is however pretty obvious: management software is
notified about
a 'bad configuration' only at an attempted guest start-up. And your
current QEMU
patches are not very helpful in conveying this piece of information.
It only becomes a 'bad configuration' if the two guests are started
concurrently.
Is there value in being able to configure two mediated devices with the
same
queue if the intent is to never run two guests using those mediated devices
simultaneously? If so, then the only time the exclusivity check can be done
is when the guest opens the mediated device. If not, then we can certainly
prevent multiple mediated devices from being assigned the same queue.
In my view, while a mediated device is used by a guest, it is not a
guest and
can be configured any way an administrator prefers. If we get concurrence
that doing an exclusivity check when an adapter or domain is assigned to
the mediated device, I'll make that change.
I've talked with Boris, and AFAIR he said this is not acceptable to
him (@Boris
can you confirm).
Then I suggest Boris participate in the review and explain why.
[To make things a bit easier I am not going to address the aspect of
not-currently-exiting host resources.]
Your current implementation does provide active configurations that work
with existing host resources. These need to be bound to the vfio_ap driver.
Libvirt allows to define objects (e.g. domains or networks). These are
just definitions and do NOT bind any resources. The defined resources
are bound once the definition is started.
Currently I am assuming that an ap matrix device is defined in libvirt
outside of a libvirt domain (an ap definition). The mediated device of
the ap matrix device is used in a libvirt domain by referencing it via
its UID.
When a libvirt domain is started the mediated device should exist and be
configured correctly as every other host resource.
Therefore there needs to be something new in libvirt that allows one to
define, start, stop and undefine an ap matrix device. After a define the
ap definition for an ap matrix device would exist in libvirt only.
Once you start the ap definition the result should be a well configured
ready to be used mediated device representing the ap definition which
can be used configuration-error free by a libvirt domain. Please not
that the start of an ap definition is independent from the start of a
libvirt domain using the ap definition.
Can you explain to me how that can be accomplished?
3) We indicate the reason for failure due to a configuration problem
(exclusivity
or resource allocation) via pr_err() that is via kernel messages. I
don't think
this is very tooling/management software friendly, and I hope we don't
expect admins
to work with the sysfs interface long term. I mean the effects of the
admin actions
are not very persistent. Thus if the interface is a painful one, we
are talking
about potentially frequent pain.
We have multiple layers of software, each with its own logging
facilities. Figuring
out what went wrong when a guest fails to start is always a painful
process IMHO.
Typically, one has to view the log for each component in the stack to
figure out
what went wrong and often times, still can't figure it out. Of course,
we can help
out here by having QEMU put out a better message when this problem
occurs. But the
bottom line is, does the community think that allowing an administrator
to configure
multiple mediated devices with the same queues have value? In other
words, are
there potential use cases that would required this?
4) If I were to act out the role of the administrator, I would prefer
to think of
specifying or changing the access controls of a guest in respect to AP
(that is
setting the AP matrix) as a single atomic operation -- which either
succeeds or fails.
I don't understand what you are describing here. How would this be done?
Are you
suggesting the admin somehow provides the masks en masse?
The operation should succeed for any valid configuration, and fail for
any invalid
on.
The current piecemeal approach seems even less fitting if we consider
changing the
access controls of a running guest. AFAIK changing access controls for
a running
guest is possible, and I don't see a reason why should we artificially
prohibit this.
Setting and clearing bits in the APM/AQM/ADM of a guest's CRYCB is
certainly possible,
but there is a lot more to it than merely setting and clearing bits.
What you seem
to be describing here is hot plug/unplug which I stated in the cover
letter is
forthcoming. It is currently prohibited for good reason.
I think the current sysfs interface for manipulating the matrix is
good for
manual playing around, but I would prefer having an interface that is
better
suited for programs (e.g. ioctl).
That wouldn't be a problem, but do we have a use case for it?
Regards,
Halil
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IBM Deutschland Research & Development GmbH
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