Re: [PATCH 26/26] KVM: PPC: Add Documentation about PV interface

Alexander Graf
2010-06-27T09:49:29Z

Am 27.06.2010 um 10:34 schrieb Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>:

> On 06/26/2010 02:25 AM, Alexander Graf wrote:
>> We just introduced a new PV interface that screams for
>> documentation. So here
>> it is - a shiny new and awesome text file describing the internal
>> works of
>> the PPC KVM paravirtual interface.
>>
>>
>> +Querying for existence
>> +======================
>> +
>> +To find out if we're running on KVM or not, we overlay the PVR
>> register. Usually
>> +the PVR register contains an id that identifies your CPU type. If,
>> however, you
>> +pass KVM_PVR_PARA in the register that you want the PVR result in,
>> the register
>> +still contains KVM_PVR_PARA after the mfpvr call.
>> +
>> + LOAD_REG_IMM(r5, KVM_PVR_PARA)
>> + mfpvr r5
>> + [r5 still contains KVM_PVR_PARA]
>> +
>> +Once determined to run under a PV capable KVM, you can now use
>> hypercalls as
>> +described below.
>>
>
> On x86 we allow host userspace to determine whether the guest sees
> the paravirt interface (and what features are exposed). This allows
> you to live migrate from a newer host to an older host, by not
> exposing the newer features.

A very good idea indeed. Let's postpone that to when we expose enough
state to make live migration possible.

Alex