Re: [RFC PATCH] docs/devel: start documenting writing VirtIO devices

[Cornelia Huck <cohuck@redhat.com>]

On Wed, Mar 16 2022, Alex Bennée <alex.bennee@linaro.org> wrote:

> Cornelia Huck <cohuck@redhat.com> writes:
>
>> On Wed, Mar 09 2022, Alex Bennée <alex.bennee@linaro.org> wrote:

>>> +Writing VirtIO backends for QEMU
>>> +================================
>>> +
>>> +This document attempts to outline the information a developer needs to
>>> +know to write backends for QEMU. It is specifically focused on
>>> +implementing VirtIO devices.
>>
>> I think you first need to define a bit more clearly what you consider a
>> "backend". For virtio, it is probably "everything a device needs to
>> function as a specific device type like net, block, etc., which may be
>> implemented by different methods" (as you describe further below).
>
> How about:
>
>   This document attempts to outline the information a developer needs to
>   know to write device emulations in QEMU. It is specifically focused on
>   implementing VirtIO devices. For VirtIO the frontend is the driver
>   running on the guest. The backend is the everything that QEMU needs to
>   do to handle the emulation of the VirtIO device. This can be done
>   entirely in QEMU, divided between QEMU and the kernel (vhost) or
>   handled by a separate process which is configured by QEMU
>   (vhost-user).

I'm afraid that confuses me even more :)

This sounds to me like frontend == driver (in virtio spec terminology)
and backend == device. Is that really what you meant?

>
>>
>>> +
>>> +Front End Transports
>>> +--------------------
>>> +
>>> +VirtIO supports a number of different front end transports. The
>>> +details of the device remain the same but there are differences in
>>> +command line for specifying the device (e.g. -device virtio-foo
>>> +and -device virtio-foo-pci). For example:
>>> +
>>> +.. code:: c
>>> +
>>> +  static const TypeInfo vhost_user_blk_info = {
>>> +      .name = TYPE_VHOST_USER_BLK,
>>> +      .parent = TYPE_VIRTIO_DEVICE,
>>> +      .instance_size = sizeof(VHostUserBlk),
>>> +      .instance_init = vhost_user_blk_instance_init,
>>> +      .class_init = vhost_user_blk_class_init,
>>> +  };
>>> +
>>> +defines ``TYPE_VHOST_USER_BLK`` as a child of the generic
>>> +``TYPE_VIRTIO_DEVICE``.
>>
>> That's not what I'd consider a "front end", though?
>
> Yeah clumsy wording. I'm trying to get find a good example to show how
> QOM can be used to abstract the core device operation and the wrappers
> for different transports. However in the code base there seems to be
> considerable variation about how this is done. Any advice as to the
> best exemplary device to follow is greatly welcomed.

I'm not sure which of the example we can really consider a "good"
device; the normal modus operandi when writing a new device seems to be
"pick the first device you can think of and copy whatever it
does". Personally, I usally look at blk or net, but those carry a lot of
legacy baggage; so maybe a modern virtio-1 only device like gpu? That
one also has the advantage of not being pci-only.

Does anyone else have a good suggestion here?

>
>>> And then for the PCI device it wraps around the
>>> +base device (although explicitly initialising via
>>> +virtio_instance_init_common):
>>> +
>>> +.. code:: c
>>> +
>>> +  struct VHostUserBlkPCI {
>>> +      VirtIOPCIProxy parent_obj;
>>> +      VHostUserBlk vdev;
>>> +  };
>>
>> The VirtIOPCIProxy seems to materialize a bit out of thin air
>> here... maybe the information simply needs to be structured in a
>> different way? Perhaps:
>>
>> - describe that virtio devices consist of a part that implements the
>>   device functionality, which ultimately derives from VirtIODevice (the
>>   "backend"), and a part that exposes a way for the operating system to
>>   discover and use the device (the "frontend", what the virtio spec
>>   calls a "transport")
>> - decribe how the "frontend" part works (maybe mention VirtIOPCIProxy,
>>   VirtIOMMIOProxy, and VirtioCcwDevice as specialized proxy devices for
>>   PCI, MMIO, and CCW devices)
>> - list the different types of "backends" (as you did below), and give
>>   two examples of how VirtIODevice is extended (a plain one, and a
>>   vhost-user one)
>> - explain how frontend and backend together create an actual device
>>   (with the two device examples, and maybe also with the plain one
>>   plugged as both PCI and CCW?); maybe also mention that MMIO is a bit
>>   different? (it always confuses me)
>
> OK I'll see how I can restructure things to make it clearer. Do we also
> have to take into account the object heirarchy for different types of
> device (i.e. block or net)? Or is that all plumbing into QEMUs
> sub-system internals done in the VirtIO device objects?

An example of how a device plugs into a bigger infrastructure like the
block layer might be helpful, but it also might complicate the
documentation (as you probably won't need to do anything like that if
you write a device that does not use any established infrastructure.)
Maybe just gloss over it for now?

>
>>> +
>>> +Back End Implementations
>>> +------------------------
>>> +
>>> +There are a number of places where the implementation of the backend
>>> +can be done:
>>> +
>>> +* in QEMU itself
>>> +* in the host kernel (a.k.a vhost)
>>> +* in a separate process (a.k.a. vhost-user)
>>> +
>>> +where a vhost-user implementation is being done the code in QEMU is
>>> +mainly boilerplate to handle the command line definition and
>>> +connection to the separate process with a socket (using the ``chardev``
>>> +functionality).
>>> +
>>> +Implementing a vhost-user wrapper
>>> +---------------------------------
>>> +
>>> +There are some classes defined that can wrap a lot of the common
>>> +vhost-user code in a ``VhostUserBackend``. For example:
>>
>> Is VhostUserBackend something that is expected to be commonly used? I
>> think gpu and input use it, but not virtiofs (unless I misread the
>> code).
>
> Possibly - but it does seem to be trying to avoid adding lots of
> boilerplate to each individual device to setup and configure the
> vhost-user backend. A problem I ran into when trying to fix the
> squashing of VHOST_USER_PROTOCOL_F_CONFIG messages in
> vhost_user_backend_init.

Yeah. I think a lot of that comes from the "pick a random existing
device as a template" procedure I mentioned above. Maybe we really
should recommend using that common structure in new device
implementations.

>
> <snip>
>>> +  static const TypeInfo vhost_user_gpu_info = {
>>> +      .name = TYPE_VHOST_USER_GPU,
>>> +      .parent = TYPE_VIRTIO_GPU_BASE,
>>> +      .instance_size = sizeof(VhostUserGPU),
>>> +      .instance_init = vhost_user_gpu_instance_init,
>>> +      .class_init = vhost_user_gpu_class_init,
>>> +      ...
>>> +  };
>>> +
>>> +Here the ``TYPE_VHOST_USER_GPU`` is based off a shared base class
>>> +(``TYPE_VIRTIO_GPU_BASE`` which itself is based on
>>> +``TYPE_VIRTIO_DEVICE``). The chardev property is aliased to the
>>> +VhostUserBackend chardev so it can be specified on the command line
>>> +for this device.
>>> + 
>>
>> I think using a "base" device is something that is device-specific; for
>> gpu, it makes sense as it can be implemented in different ways, but
>> e.g. virtiofs does not have a "plain" implementation, and some device
>> types have only "plain" implementations.
>
> Perhaps the GPU was a bad choice here. Do we have a good example device
> that has both mmio and pci (or ccw) transports as well as QEMU internal
> and vhost/vhost-user implementations?

Ugh. Maybe scsi? It carries a bit of legacy stuff, though.