Re: [RFC] /dev/ioasid uAPI proposal

Alex Williamson
2021-06-04T15:38:10Z

On Fri, 4 Jun 2021 09:19:50 +0000
"Tian, Kevin" <kevin.tian@intel.com> wrote:

> > From: Alex Williamson <alex.williamson@redhat.com>
> > Sent: Friday, June 4, 2021 4:42 AM
> >
> > > 'qemu --allow-no-snoop' makes more sense to me
> >
> > I'd be tempted to attach it to the -device vfio-pci option, it's
> > specific drivers for specific devices that are going to want this and
> > those devices may not be permanently attached to the VM. But I see in
> > the other thread you're trying to optimize IOMMU page table sharing.
> >
> > There's a usability question in either case though and I'm not sure how
> > to get around it other than QEMU or the kernel knowing a list of
> > devices (explicit IDs or vendor+class) to select per device defaults.
> >
>
> "-device vfio-pci" is a per-device option, which implies that the
> no-snoop choice is given to the admin then no need to maintain
> a fixed device list in Qemu?

I think we want to look at where we put it to have the best default
user experience. For example the QEMU vfio-pci device option could use
on/off/auto semantics where auto is the default and QEMU maintains a
list of IDs or vendor/class configurations where we've determined the
"optimal" auto configuration. Management tools could provide an
override, but we're imposing some pretty technical requirements for a
management tool to be able to come up with good per device defaults.
Seems like we should consolidate that technical decision in one place.
Thanks,

Alex