Re: [RFC 03/20] vfio: Add vfio_[un]register_device()

Jason Gunthorpe
2021-09-22T01:00:20Z

On Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 12:54:02AM +0000, Tian, Kevin wrote:
> > From: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@nvidia.com>
> > Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2021 12:01 AM
> >
> > > One open about how to organize the device nodes under
> > /dev/vfio/devices/.
> > > This RFC adopts a simple policy by keeping a flat layout with mixed
> > devname
> > > from all kinds of devices. The prerequisite of this model is that devnames
> > > from different bus types are unique formats:
> >
> > This isn't reliable, the devname should just be vfio0, vfio1, etc
> >
> > The userspace can learn the correct major/minor by inspecting the
> > sysfs.
> >
> > This whole concept should disappear into the prior patch that adds the
> > struct device in the first place, and I think most of the code here
> > can be deleted once the struct device is used properly.
> >
>
> Can you help elaborate above flow? This is one area where we need
> more guidance.
>
> When Qemu accepts an option "-device vfio-pci,host=DDDD:BB:DD.F",
> how does Qemu identify which vifo0/1/... is associated with the specified
> DDDD:BB:DD.F?

When done properly in the kernel the file:

/sys/bus/pci/devices/DDDD:BB:DD.F/vfio/vfioX/dev

Will contain the major:minor of the VFIO device.

Userspace then opens the /dev/vfio/devices/vfioX and checks with fstat
that the major:minor matches.

in the above pattern "pci" and "DDDD:BB:DD.FF" are the arguments passed
to qemu.

You can look at this for some general over engineered code to handle
opening from a sysfs handle like above:

https://github.com/linux-rdma/rdma-core/blob/master/util/open_cdev.c

Jason