Re: Semantics of "-cpu host" (was Re: [PATCH 2/2] Expose tsc deadline timer cpuid to guest)

[Gleb Natapov <gleb@redhat.com>]

On Wed, May 09, 2012 at 12:07:04AM +0200, Alexander Graf wrote:
> 
> On 08.05.2012, at 22:14, Eduardo Habkost wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, May 08, 2012 at 02:58:11AM +0200, Alexander Graf wrote:
> >> On 07.05.2012, at 20:21, Eduardo Habkost wrote:
> >> 
> >>> 
> >>> Andre? Are you able to help to answer the question below?
> >>> 
> >>> I would like to clarify what's the expected behavior of "-cpu host" to
> >>> be able to continue working on it. I believe the code will need to be
> >>> fixed on either case, but first we need to figure out what are the
> >>> expectations/requirements, to know _which_ changes will be needed.
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 02:19:25PM -0300, Eduardo Habkost wrote:
> >>>> (CCing Andre Przywara, in case he can help to clarify what's the
> >>>> expected meaning of "-cpu host")
> >>>> 
> >>> [...]
> >>>> I am not sure I understand what you are proposing. Let me explain the
> >>>> use case I am thinking about:
> >>>> 
> >>>> - Feature FOO is of type (A) (e.g. just a new instruction set that
> >>>> doesn't require additional userspace support)
> >>>> - User has a Qemu vesion that doesn't know anything about feature FOO
> >>>> - User gets a new CPU that supports feature FOO
> >>>> - User gets a new kernel that supports feature FOO (i.e. has FOO in
> >>>> GET_SUPPORTED_CPUID)
> >>>> - User does _not_ upgrade Qemu.
> >>>> - User expects to get feature FOO enabled if using "-cpu host", without
> >>>> upgrading Qemu.
> >>>> 
> >>>> The problem here is: to support the above use-case, userspace need a
> >>>> probing mechanism that can differentiate _new_ (previously unknown)
> >>>> features that are in group (A) (safe to blindly enable) from features
> >>>> that are in group (B) (that can't be enabled without an userspace
> >>>> upgrade).
> >>>> 
> >>>> In short, it becomes a problem if we consider the following case:
> >>>> 
> >>>> - Feature BAR is of type (B) (it can't be enabled without extra
> >>>> userspace support)
> >>>> - User has a Qemu version that doesn't know anything about feature BAR
> >>>> - User gets a new CPU that supports feature BAR
> >>>> - User gets a new kernel that supports feature BAR (i.e. has BAR in
> >>>> GET_SUPPORTED_CPUID)
> >>>> - User does _not_ upgrade Qemu.
> >>>> - User simply shouldn't get feature BAR enabled, even if using "-cpu
> >>>> host", otherwise Qemu would break.
> >>>> 
> >>>> If userspace always limited itself to features it knows about, it would
> >>>> be really easy to implement the feature without any new probing
> >>>> mechanism from the kernel. But that's not how I think users expect "-cpu
> >>>> host" to work. Maybe I am wrong, I don't know. I am CCing Andre, who
> >>>> introduced the "-cpu host" feature, in case he can explain what's the
> >>>> expected semantics on the cases above.
> >> 
> >> Can you think of any feature that'd go into category B?
> > 
> > - TSC-deadline: can't be enabled unless userspace takes care to enable
> >  the in-kernel irqchip.
> 
> The kernel can check if in-kernel irqchip has it enabled and otherwise mask it out, no?
> 
How kernel should know that userspace does not emulate it?

> > - x2apic: ditto.
> 
> Same here. For user space irqchip the kernel side doesn't care. If in-kernel APIC is enabled, check for its capabilities.
> 
Same here.

Well, technically both of those features can't be implemented in
userspace right now since MSRs are terminated in the kernel, but I
wouldn't make it into ABI.


--
			Gleb.