Re: [RFC PATCH 5/5] nvme-vfio: Add a document for the NVMe device

Max Gurtovoy
2022-12-11T12:05:21Z

On 12/6/2022 5:01 PM, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 06, 2022 at 10:48:22AM -0400, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
>> Sadly in Linux we don't have a SRIOV VF lifecycle model that is any
>> use.
> Beward: The secondary function might as well be a physical function
> as well. In fact one of the major customers for "smart" multifunction
> nvme devices prefers multi-PF devices over SR-IOV VFs. (and all the
> symmetric dual ported devices are multi-PF as well).
>
> So this isn't really about a VF live cycle, but how to manage life
> migration, especially on the receive / restore side. And restoring
> the entire controller state is extremely invasive and can't be done
> on a controller that is in any classic form live. In fact a lot
> of the state is subsystem-wide, so without some kind of virtualization
> of the subsystem it is impossible to actually restore the state.

ohh, great !

I read this subsystem virtualization proposal of yours after I sent my
proposal for subsystem virtualization in patch 1/5 thread.
I guess this means that this is the right way to go.
Lets continue brainstorming this idea. I think this can be the way to
migrate NVMe controllers in a standard way.

>
> To cycle back to the hardware that is posted here, I'm really confused
> how it actually has any chance to work and no one has even tried
> to explain how it is supposed to work.

I guess in vendor specific implementation you can assume some things
that we are discussing now for making it as a standard.