From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Avi Kivity Subject: Re: [RFC] Next gen kvm api Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2012 11:44:43 +0200 Message-ID: <4F2E4F8B.8090504@redhat.com> References: <4F2AB552.2070909@redhat.com> <20120205093723.GQ23536@redhat.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: linux-kernel , KVM list , qemu-devel To: Gleb Natapov Return-path: In-Reply-To: <20120205093723.GQ23536@redhat.com> List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: qemu-devel-bounces+gceq-qemu-devel=gmane.org@nongnu.org Sender: qemu-devel-bounces+gceq-qemu-devel=gmane.org@nongnu.org List-Id: kvm.vger.kernel.org On 02/05/2012 11:37 AM, Gleb Natapov wrote: > On Thu, Feb 02, 2012 at 06:09:54PM +0200, Avi Kivity wrote: > > Device model > > ------------ > > Currently kvm virtualizes or emulates a set of x86 cores, with or > > without local APICs, a 24-input IOAPIC, a PIC, a PIT, and a number of > > PCI devices assigned from the host. The API allows emulating the local > > APICs in userspace. > > > > The new API will do away with the IOAPIC/PIC/PIT emulation and defer > > them to userspace. Note: this may cause a regression for older guests > > that don't support MSI or kvmclock. Device assignment will be done > > using VFIO, that is, without direct kvm involvement. > > > So are we officially saying that KVM is only for modern guest > virtualization? No, but older guests may have reduced performance in some workloads (e.g. RHEL4 gettimeofday() intensive workloads). > Also my not so old host kernel uses MSI only for NIC. > SATA and USB are using IOAPIC (though this is probably more HW related > than kernel version related). For devices emulated in userspace, it doesn't matter where the IOAPIC is. It only matters for kernel provided devices (PIT, assigned devices, vhost-net). -- error compiling committee.c: too many arguments to function