Re: [Qemu-devel] [question] virtio-blk performancedegradationhappened with virito-serial

Zhang Haoyu
2014-09-22T13:24:15Z

>> > >>> Hi, all
>> > >>>
>> > >>> I start a VM with virtio-serial (default ports number: 31), and found that virtio-blk performance degradation happened, about 25%, this problem can be reproduced 100%.
>> > >>> without virtio-serial:
>> > >>> 4k-read-random 1186 IOPS
>> > >>> with virtio-serial:
>> > >>> 4k-read-random 871 IOPS
>> > >>>
>> > >>> but if use max_ports=2 option to limit the max number of virio-serial ports, then the IO performance degradation is not so serious, about 5%.
>> > >>>
>> > >>> And, ide performance degradation does not happen with virtio-serial.
>> > >>
>> > >>Pretty sure it's related to MSI vectors in use. It's possible that
>> > >>the virtio-serial device takes up all the avl vectors in the guests,
>> > >>leaving old-style irqs for the virtio-blk device.
>> > >>
>> > >I don't think so,
>> > >I use iometer to test 64k-read(or write)-sequence case, if I disable the virtio-serial dynamically via device manager->virtio-serial => disable,
>> > >then the performance get promotion about 25% immediately, then I re-enable the virtio-serial via device manager->virtio-serial => enable,
>> > >the performance got back again, very obvious.
>> > add comments:
>> > Although the virtio-serial is enabled, I don't use it at all, the degradation still happened.
>>
>> Using the vectors= option as mentioned below, you can restrict the
>> number of MSI vectors the virtio-serial device gets. You can then
>> confirm whether it's MSI that's related to these issues.
>
>Amit,
>
>It's related to the big number of ioeventfds used in virtio-serial-pci. With
>virtio-serial-pci's ioeventfd=off, the performance is not affected no matter if
>guest initializes it or not.
>
>In my test, there are 12 fds to poll in qemu_poll_ns before loading guest
>virtio_console.ko, whereas 76 once modprobe virtio_console.
>
>Looks like the ppoll takes more time to poll more fds.
>
>Some trace data with systemtap:
>
>12 fds:
>
>time rel_time symbol
>15 (+1) qemu_poll_ns [enter]
>18 (+3) qemu_poll_ns [return]
>
>76 fd:
>
>12 (+2) qemu_poll_ns [enter]
>18 (+6) qemu_poll_ns [return]
>
>I haven't looked at virtio-serial code, I'm not sure if we should reduce the
>number of ioeventfds in virtio-serial-pci or focus on lower level efficiency.
>
Does ioeventfd=off hamper the performance of virtio-serial?
In my opinion, virtio-serial's use scenario is not so high throughput rate,
so ioventfd=off has slight impaction on the performance.

Thanks,
Zhang Haoyu

>Haven't compared with g_poll but I think the underlying syscall should be the
>same.
>
>Any ideas?
>
>Fam
>
>
>>
>> > >So, I think it has no business with legacy interrupt mode, right?
>> > >
>> > >I am going to observe the difference of perf top data on qemu and perf kvm stat data when disable/enable virtio-serial in guest,
>> > >and the difference of perf top data on guest when disable/enable virtio-serial in guest,
>> > >any ideas?
>> > >
>> > >Thanks,
>> > >Zhang Haoyu
>> > >>If you restrict the number of vectors the virtio-serial device gets
>> > >>(using the -device virtio-serial-pci,vectors= param), does that make
>> > >>things better for you?
>>
>>
>>
>> Amit