From: <mhonap@nvidia.com>
To: <alex@shazbot.org>, <ankita@nvidia.com>, <jic23@kernel.org>,
<dave.jiang@intel.com>, <alejandro.lucero-palau@amd.com>,
<smadhavan@nvidia.com>, <pierrick.bouvier@oss.qualcomm.com>,
<mst@redhat.com>, <imammedo@redhat.com>, <anisinha@redhat.com>,
<pbonzini@redhat.com>, <eric.auger@redhat.com>,
<peter.maydell@linaro.org>, <richard.henderson@linaro.org>,
<clg@redhat.com>, <cohuck@redhat.com>
Cc: <kjaju@nvidia.com>, <vsethi@nvidia.com>, <zhiw@nvidia.com>,
<mhonap@nvidia.com>, <qemu-devel@nongnu.org>,
<qemu-arm@nongnu.org>, <linux-cxl@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: [PATCH v2 08/10] docs/cxl: Document CXL Type-2 device passthrough
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:14:10 +0530 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260916184412.3825713-9-mhonap@nvidia.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20260916184412.3825713-1-mhonap@nvidia.com>
From: Manish Honap <mhonap@nvidia.com>
Describe the supported single-endpoint passthrough topology, the command
line, and the kernel dependency, and note that a guest CXL reset is
handled by the host kernel rather than QEMU.
AI-used-for: docs
Signed-off-by: Manish Honap <mhonap@nvidia.com>
---
docs/system/devices/cxl.rst | 45 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 45 insertions(+)
diff --git a/docs/system/devices/cxl.rst b/docs/system/devices/cxl.rst
index 6bee339cea..3cdd320457 100644
--- a/docs/system/devices/cxl.rst
+++ b/docs/system/devices/cxl.rst
@@ -423,6 +423,51 @@ Volatile Memory device::
-device cxl-type3,bus=root_port13,volatile-memdev=vmem0,id=cxl-vmem0 \
-M cxl-fmw.0.targets.0=cxl.1,cxl-fmw.0.size=4G
+Type 2 device passthrough
+-------------------------
+
+A CXL Type 2 device (an accelerator with host-managed device memory) can be
+assigned to a guest with vfio-pci, so the guest reaches the device memory
+through its own CXL stack. This pairs with the kernel vfio-cxl series: the
+host kernel fixes the device memory at a host physical range before the guest
+sees the device, and QEMU maps that range at the guest physical address the
+guest programs into its endpoint HDM decoder.
+
+The device memory reaches the guest as a CXL fixed memory window (``cxl-fmw``),
+advertised through CEDT, exactly like a Type 3 window; there is no separate
+device memory-map slot. Only the endpoint decoder is programmed, by the guest,
+so the host bridge must stay in HDM passthrough mode: a single ``cxl-rp`` under
+the ``pxb-cxl`` and no ``hdm_for_passthrough``. Switch-attached and interleaved
+topologies are rejected.
+
+Example command line::
+
+ -machine q35,cxl=on
+ -device pxb-cxl,bus_nr=12,bus=pcie.0,id=cxl.1
+ -device cxl-rp,port=0,bus=cxl.1,id=rp0,chassis=0,slot=2
+ -device vfio-pci,host=<BDF>,bus=rp0,id=cxl-ep0
+ -M cxl-fmw.0.targets.0=cxl.1,cxl-fmw.0.size=<device-mem-size>
+
+The window must be a single-target ``cxl-fmw`` that targets the device's
+``pxb-cxl`` and is at least the size of the device memory. The guest triggers a
+CXL reset by writing the CXL Device DVSEC; the host kernel runs that sequence,
+so QEMU has no reset handling of its own.
+
+On arm64, pass ``accel=on`` to the ``arm-smmuv3`` when passing a Type 2 device
+through. The accelerated SMMUv3 describes the device MSI doorbell to the guest
+through an IORT Reserved Memory Range (RMR) node, which reserves a fixed guest
+IOVA, so OSPM must preserve the firmware PCI resource assignments rather than
+re-enumerate them. QEMU requests that through PCI Firmware ``_DSM`` function 5
+(preserve firmware PCI configuration), which on arm64 is emitted for the CXL
+host bridge only when the machine requests preserved configuration, that is,
+the accelerated SMMUv3 path. This ``_DSM`` is not about the CXL decoder:
+vfio-pci keeps the host BAR fixed, and QEMU's trapped component-register block
+is a subregion of the guest BAR MemoryRegion, so it follows any guest-visible
+BAR relocation on its own. x86 does not use the accelerated SMMU, so it does
+not advertise or implement preserve-configuration function 5; the CXL host
+bridge still emits the ``_DSM`` method, but its function 0 returns an empty
+support mask.
+
Deprecations
------------
--
2.25.1
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2026-09-16 18:46 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 27+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-09-16 18:44 [PATCH v2 00/10] QEMU: CXL Type-2 device passthrough via vfio-pci mhonap
2026-09-16 18:44 ` [PATCH v2 01/10] linux-headers: Update vfio.h for CXL Type-2 passthrough mhonap
2026-09-16 18:44 ` [PATCH v2 02/10] hw/vfio/region: Add vfio_region_setup_with_ops() mhonap
2026-09-17 13:27 ` Cédric Le Goater
2026-09-21 10:48 ` Manish Honap
2026-09-16 18:44 ` [PATCH v2 03/10] hw/vfio/pci: Detect a CXL Type-2 device and read its geometry mhonap
2026-09-17 16:04 ` Cédric Le Goater
2026-09-21 10:49 ` Manish Honap
2026-09-16 18:44 ` [PATCH v2 04/10] hw/vfio/pci: Enforce the passthrough topology for a CXL device mhonap
2026-09-17 13:20 ` Cédric Le Goater
2026-09-21 10:45 ` Manish Honap
2026-09-16 18:44 ` [PATCH v2 05/10] hw/vfio/pci: Back the CXL memory with a RAM-device region mhonap
2026-09-17 13:56 ` Cédric Le Goater
2026-09-21 10:55 ` Manish Honap
2026-09-16 18:44 ` [PATCH v2 06/10] hw/vfio/pci: Bind a CXL device to its fixed memory window mhonap
2026-09-17 16:00 ` Cédric Le Goater
2026-09-21 11:03 ` Manish Honap
2026-09-16 18:44 ` [PATCH v2 07/10] hw/vfio/pci: Map the CXL memory on the guest decoder commit mhonap
2026-09-18 16:08 ` Cédric Le Goater
2026-09-21 11:14 ` Manish Honap
2026-09-20 9:14 ` Junjie Cao
2026-09-21 11:17 ` Manish Honap
2026-09-16 18:44 ` mhonap [this message]
2026-09-16 18:44 ` [PATCH v2 09/10] hw/arm/smmu-common: Allow pxb-cxl as an SMMUv3 primary bus mhonap
2026-09-16 18:44 ` [PATCH v2 10/10] hw/pci-host: Emit a _DSM on pxb-cxl to preserve firmware PCI config mhonap
2026-09-20 9:14 ` Junjie Cao
2026-09-21 11:20 ` Manish Honap
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