From: "João Peixoto" <jpeixoto@osyx.tech>
To: gregkh@linuxfoundation.org, will@kernel.org
Cc: catalin.marinas@arm.com, andrew.jones@oss.qualcomm.com,
pjw@kernel.org, palmer@dabbelt.com, aou@eecs.berkeley.edu,
alex@ghiti.fr, krzk+dt@kernel.org, robh@kernel.org,
conor+dt@kernel.org, corbet@lwn.net, skhan@linuxfoundation.org,
rdunlap@infradead.org, jose@osyx.tech, davidmcerdeira@osyx.tech,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org,
linux-riscv@lists.infradead.org, linux-doc@vger.kernel.org,
devicetree@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH v6 0/3] virt: bao: add Bao hypervisor IPC and I/O dispatcher drivers
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2026 17:12:52 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <cover.1794589639.git.jpeixoto@osyx.tech> (raw)
This series adds guest-side drivers for the Bao static-partitioning
hypervisor: an IPC shared-memory driver, an I/O dispatcher that lets a
backend guest service VirtIO I/O for frontend guests, their UAPI and a
MAINTAINERS entry.
Bao is a lightweight static-partitioning hypervisor for embedded and
safety-critical systems (https://github.com/bao-project).
- The IPC shared-memory driver lets Bao guests exchange data through a
shared-memory region split into a read and a write channel, exposed
as a misc character device (read(), write(), mmap()). The channels
are declared on the kernel command line.
- The I/O dispatcher bridges Bao's Remote I/O mechanism to a userspace
VMM: the VMM creates each device model from /dev/bao, receives the
frontend's MMIO accesses and completes them, with ioeventfd/irqfd
support for the fast paths.
Changes since v5
----------------
All findings of the Sashiko review of v5 are addressed. They are all in
the I/O dispatcher; patches 1 and 3 are unchanged.
- A device model is torn down in order: dispatching stops first, every
I/O client is stopped before any is destroyed (the ioeventfds are
released only once their thread is gone), then the queued, in-flight
and still pending requests are completed. The dispatcher is no longer
paused and resumed per client, which re-queued dispatch work during
teardown and issued hypercalls when BAO_IOCTL_CREATE_DM failed.
- IO_CLIENT_ATTACH publishes a request only once it has been copied to
userspace, so a concurrent IO_REQUEST_COMPLETE cannot complete it
twice.
- ioeventfds follow KVM: two of them conflict when a write could match
both, whatever eventfd they use; a request matches only the exact
length; reads, and writes that no ioeventfd matches, are handed to
the VMM instead of being answered or dropped by the kernel.
- Matching a request against an I/O range rejects zero or oversized
access widths and wrap-around.
- An irqfd consumes the eventfd counter when signaled, and deassigning
an unknown irqfd fails with -ENOENT.
- The I/O dispatcher is 64-bit only: the Remote I/O fields did not fit
the RV32 hypercall registers.
Also, requests already pending when a device model is created (a
frontend that started first, a VMM that restarted) are picked up at
creation instead of waiting for a notification that does not come
again.
Changes since v4
----------------
- BAO_IOCTL_CREATE_DM requires CAP_SYS_RAWIO, is refused under lockdown
and claims a non-RAM region with request_mem_region(), mirroring
/dev/mem. The notification line is checked against the interrupt
controller and requested exclusively, and its mapping is never
disposed, since it may be shared with whoever owns the line.
- Requests that cannot be delivered are completed instead of stranded.
The requests handed to the VMM are tracked: a completion only
provides the value, and a VMM that exits leaves nothing behind.
- ioeventfds and irqfds are bounded per device model, and a device
model id is bound to one file descriptor at a time.
- RISC-V: the hypercall status is the SBI value (a1), and both drivers
depend on RISCV_SBI.
- mmap goes through .mmap_prepare and only allows shared mappings;
.compat_ioctl is set; the IPC driver never unwinds a registered
device; bao_ipcshmem.channels= is documented in kernel-parameters.txt;
rebased on v7.4-rc1.
Changes since v3
----------------
- No device tree (Krzysztof Kozlowski): the IPC channels are declared
on the kernel command line and, following drivers/virt/acrn, the VMM
creates each device model through /dev/bao (BAO_IOCTL_CREATE_DM),
which returns a per-device-model file descriptor.
- No architecture code (Will Deacon): the hypercalls use
arm_smccc_hvc()/arm_smccc_1_2_hvc() and sbi_ecall() from a
driver-private header.
- The "consolidate the IPC hypercall ID" patch is folded in (Andrew
Jones), and the ioctl type is 0xA7.
Testing
-------
Built on v7.4-rc1 with GCC 15 (W=1) for arm64, arm and riscv (RV64 and
RV32), at every commit, and with clang 21 (W=1) for arm64 and riscv.
Run-time tested under Bao v2.0.0 on QEMU aarch64 virt and QEMU riscv64
virt with the bao-demos demos: the IPC driver exchanging messages in
both directions between a Linux guest and a FreeRTOS guest, and the I/O
dispatcher with a Linux backend serving console, network and block
device models to a FreeRTOS guest and to Linux guests, including
killing and restarting the VMMs, plus a userspace test of the /dev/bao
error paths (privilege, region and line checks, duplicate ids, limits,
completions, ioeventfd and irqfd rules) run next to the live VMMs.
32-bit Arm is compile-tested only.
Open items
----------
- RISC-V: the Bao SBI extension still uses the experimental extension
space (0x08000ba0), and the Remote I/O hypercall returns the request
in a2-a7, which does not follow the SBI calling convention (Andrew
Jones, v2). Changing that means a hypervisor ABI change (status in
a0/a1, request through shared memory); the RISC-V support is
experimental until then, or it can be split out of this series if
preferred.
- Bao does not implement the SMCCC vendor-hypervisor UID call, so the
drivers cannot detect the hypervisor yet; adding it is planned on the
hypervisor side.
- The notification line is a line of the interrupt controller the device
tree's root node points at through interrupt-parent; a guest whose
root node has none cannot use the I/O dispatcher yet.
v5: https://lore.kernel.org/all/cover.1794038390.git.jpeixoto@osyx.tech/
v4: https://lore.kernel.org/all/cover.1790357735.git.jpeixoto@osyx.tech/
v3: https://lore.kernel.org/all/cover.1786010512.git.jpeixoto@osyx.tech/
João Peixoto (3):
virt: bao: add IPC shared-memory driver
virt: bao: add I/O dispatcher driver
MAINTAINERS: add Bao hypervisor entry
.../admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt | 15 +
.../userspace-api/ioctl/ioctl-number.rst | 2 +
MAINTAINERS | 8 +
drivers/virt/Kconfig | 2 +
drivers/virt/Makefile | 1 +
drivers/virt/bao/Kconfig | 5 +
drivers/virt/bao/Makefile | 4 +
drivers/virt/bao/bao_hypercall.h | 210 ++++++++
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/Kconfig | 20 +
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/Makefile | 4 +
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/bao_drv.h | 421 ++++++++++++++++
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/dm.c | 460 +++++++++++++++++
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/driver.c | 71 +++
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/intc.c | 186 +++++++
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/io_client.c | 475 ++++++++++++++++++
.../virt/bao/io-dispatcher/io_dispatcher.c | 184 +++++++
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/ioeventfd.c | 359 +++++++++++++
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/irqfd.c | 330 ++++++++++++
drivers/virt/bao/ipcshmem/Kconfig | 16 +
drivers/virt/bao/ipcshmem/Makefile | 3 +
drivers/virt/bao/ipcshmem/ipcshmem.c | 421 ++++++++++++++++
include/uapi/linux/bao.h | 126 +++++
22 files changed, 3323 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/Kconfig
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/Makefile
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/bao_hypercall.h
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/Kconfig
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/Makefile
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/bao_drv.h
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/dm.c
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/driver.c
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/intc.c
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/io_client.c
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/io_dispatcher.c
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/ioeventfd.c
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/irqfd.c
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/ipcshmem/Kconfig
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/ipcshmem/Makefile
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/ipcshmem/ipcshmem.c
create mode 100644 include/uapi/linux/bao.h
base-commit: 6628e7d4c6b25c8d18f1345e3a20d21829aae7e4
--
2.53.0
WARNING: multiple messages have this Message-ID (diff)
From: "João Peixoto" <jpeixoto@osyx.tech>
To: gregkh@linuxfoundation.org, will@kernel.org
Cc: catalin.marinas@arm.com, andrew.jones@oss.qualcomm.com,
pjw@kernel.org, palmer@dabbelt.com, aou@eecs.berkeley.edu,
alex@ghiti.fr, krzk+dt@kernel.org, robh@kernel.org,
conor+dt@kernel.org, corbet@lwn.net, skhan@linuxfoundation.org,
rdunlap@infradead.org, jose@osyx.tech, davidmcerdeira@osyx.tech,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org,
linux-riscv@lists.infradead.org, linux-doc@vger.kernel.org,
devicetree@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH v6 0/3] virt: bao: add Bao hypervisor IPC and I/O dispatcher drivers
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2026 17:12:52 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <cover.1794589639.git.jpeixoto@osyx.tech> (raw)
This series adds guest-side drivers for the Bao static-partitioning
hypervisor: an IPC shared-memory driver, an I/O dispatcher that lets a
backend guest service VirtIO I/O for frontend guests, their UAPI and a
MAINTAINERS entry.
Bao is a lightweight static-partitioning hypervisor for embedded and
safety-critical systems (https://github.com/bao-project).
- The IPC shared-memory driver lets Bao guests exchange data through a
shared-memory region split into a read and a write channel, exposed
as a misc character device (read(), write(), mmap()). The channels
are declared on the kernel command line.
- The I/O dispatcher bridges Bao's Remote I/O mechanism to a userspace
VMM: the VMM creates each device model from /dev/bao, receives the
frontend's MMIO accesses and completes them, with ioeventfd/irqfd
support for the fast paths.
Changes since v5
----------------
All findings of the Sashiko review of v5 are addressed. They are all in
the I/O dispatcher; patches 1 and 3 are unchanged.
- A device model is torn down in order: dispatching stops first, every
I/O client is stopped before any is destroyed (the ioeventfds are
released only once their thread is gone), then the queued, in-flight
and still pending requests are completed. The dispatcher is no longer
paused and resumed per client, which re-queued dispatch work during
teardown and issued hypercalls when BAO_IOCTL_CREATE_DM failed.
- IO_CLIENT_ATTACH publishes a request only once it has been copied to
userspace, so a concurrent IO_REQUEST_COMPLETE cannot complete it
twice.
- ioeventfds follow KVM: two of them conflict when a write could match
both, whatever eventfd they use; a request matches only the exact
length; reads, and writes that no ioeventfd matches, are handed to
the VMM instead of being answered or dropped by the kernel.
- Matching a request against an I/O range rejects zero or oversized
access widths and wrap-around.
- An irqfd consumes the eventfd counter when signaled, and deassigning
an unknown irqfd fails with -ENOENT.
- The I/O dispatcher is 64-bit only: the Remote I/O fields did not fit
the RV32 hypercall registers.
Also, requests already pending when a device model is created (a
frontend that started first, a VMM that restarted) are picked up at
creation instead of waiting for a notification that does not come
again.
Changes since v4
----------------
- BAO_IOCTL_CREATE_DM requires CAP_SYS_RAWIO, is refused under lockdown
and claims a non-RAM region with request_mem_region(), mirroring
/dev/mem. The notification line is checked against the interrupt
controller and requested exclusively, and its mapping is never
disposed, since it may be shared with whoever owns the line.
- Requests that cannot be delivered are completed instead of stranded.
The requests handed to the VMM are tracked: a completion only
provides the value, and a VMM that exits leaves nothing behind.
- ioeventfds and irqfds are bounded per device model, and a device
model id is bound to one file descriptor at a time.
- RISC-V: the hypercall status is the SBI value (a1), and both drivers
depend on RISCV_SBI.
- mmap goes through .mmap_prepare and only allows shared mappings;
.compat_ioctl is set; the IPC driver never unwinds a registered
device; bao_ipcshmem.channels= is documented in kernel-parameters.txt;
rebased on v7.4-rc1.
Changes since v3
----------------
- No device tree (Krzysztof Kozlowski): the IPC channels are declared
on the kernel command line and, following drivers/virt/acrn, the VMM
creates each device model through /dev/bao (BAO_IOCTL_CREATE_DM),
which returns a per-device-model file descriptor.
- No architecture code (Will Deacon): the hypercalls use
arm_smccc_hvc()/arm_smccc_1_2_hvc() and sbi_ecall() from a
driver-private header.
- The "consolidate the IPC hypercall ID" patch is folded in (Andrew
Jones), and the ioctl type is 0xA7.
Testing
-------
Built on v7.4-rc1 with GCC 15 (W=1) for arm64, arm and riscv (RV64 and
RV32), at every commit, and with clang 21 (W=1) for arm64 and riscv.
Run-time tested under Bao v2.0.0 on QEMU aarch64 virt and QEMU riscv64
virt with the bao-demos demos: the IPC driver exchanging messages in
both directions between a Linux guest and a FreeRTOS guest, and the I/O
dispatcher with a Linux backend serving console, network and block
device models to a FreeRTOS guest and to Linux guests, including
killing and restarting the VMMs, plus a userspace test of the /dev/bao
error paths (privilege, region and line checks, duplicate ids, limits,
completions, ioeventfd and irqfd rules) run next to the live VMMs.
32-bit Arm is compile-tested only.
Open items
----------
- RISC-V: the Bao SBI extension still uses the experimental extension
space (0x08000ba0), and the Remote I/O hypercall returns the request
in a2-a7, which does not follow the SBI calling convention (Andrew
Jones, v2). Changing that means a hypervisor ABI change (status in
a0/a1, request through shared memory); the RISC-V support is
experimental until then, or it can be split out of this series if
preferred.
- Bao does not implement the SMCCC vendor-hypervisor UID call, so the
drivers cannot detect the hypervisor yet; adding it is planned on the
hypervisor side.
- The notification line is a line of the interrupt controller the device
tree's root node points at through interrupt-parent; a guest whose
root node has none cannot use the I/O dispatcher yet.
v5: https://lore.kernel.org/all/cover.1794038390.git.jpeixoto@osyx.tech/
v4: https://lore.kernel.org/all/cover.1790357735.git.jpeixoto@osyx.tech/
v3: https://lore.kernel.org/all/cover.1786010512.git.jpeixoto@osyx.tech/
João Peixoto (3):
virt: bao: add IPC shared-memory driver
virt: bao: add I/O dispatcher driver
MAINTAINERS: add Bao hypervisor entry
.../admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt | 15 +
.../userspace-api/ioctl/ioctl-number.rst | 2 +
MAINTAINERS | 8 +
drivers/virt/Kconfig | 2 +
drivers/virt/Makefile | 1 +
drivers/virt/bao/Kconfig | 5 +
drivers/virt/bao/Makefile | 4 +
drivers/virt/bao/bao_hypercall.h | 210 ++++++++
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/Kconfig | 20 +
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/Makefile | 4 +
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/bao_drv.h | 421 ++++++++++++++++
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/dm.c | 460 +++++++++++++++++
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/driver.c | 71 +++
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/intc.c | 186 +++++++
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/io_client.c | 475 ++++++++++++++++++
.../virt/bao/io-dispatcher/io_dispatcher.c | 184 +++++++
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/ioeventfd.c | 359 +++++++++++++
drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/irqfd.c | 330 ++++++++++++
drivers/virt/bao/ipcshmem/Kconfig | 16 +
drivers/virt/bao/ipcshmem/Makefile | 3 +
drivers/virt/bao/ipcshmem/ipcshmem.c | 421 ++++++++++++++++
include/uapi/linux/bao.h | 126 +++++
22 files changed, 3323 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/Kconfig
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/Makefile
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/bao_hypercall.h
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/Kconfig
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/Makefile
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/bao_drv.h
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/dm.c
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/driver.c
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/intc.c
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/io_client.c
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/io_dispatcher.c
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/ioeventfd.c
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/io-dispatcher/irqfd.c
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/ipcshmem/Kconfig
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/ipcshmem/Makefile
create mode 100644 drivers/virt/bao/ipcshmem/ipcshmem.c
create mode 100644 include/uapi/linux/bao.h
base-commit: 6628e7d4c6b25c8d18f1345e3a20d21829aae7e4
--
2.53.0
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next reply other threads:[~2026-11-13 17:13 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 9+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-11-13 17:12 João Peixoto [this message]
2026-11-13 17:12 ` [PATCH v6 0/3] virt: bao: add Bao hypervisor IPC and I/O dispatcher drivers João Peixoto
2026-11-13 17:12 ` [PATCH v6 1/3] virt: bao: add IPC shared-memory driver João Peixoto
2026-11-13 17:12 ` João Peixoto
2026-11-13 17:12 ` [PATCH v6 2/3] virt: bao: add I/O dispatcher driver João Peixoto
2026-11-13 17:12 ` João Peixoto
2026-11-13 17:27 ` sashiko-bot
2026-11-13 17:12 ` [PATCH v6 3/3] MAINTAINERS: add Bao hypervisor entry João Peixoto
2026-11-13 17:12 ` João Peixoto
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