Re: [RFC/PATCH 1/1] virtio: Introduce MMIO ops

Srivatsa Vaddagiri
2020-04-30T11:12:18Z

* Will Deacon <will@kernel.org> [2020-04-30 11:41:50]:

> On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 04:04:46PM +0530, Srivatsa Vaddagiri wrote:
> > If CONFIG_VIRTIO_MMIO_OPS is defined, then I expect this to be unconditionally
> > set to 'magic_qcom_ops' that uses hypervisor-supported interface for IO (for
> > example: message_queue_send() and message_queue_recevie() hypercalls).
>
> Hmm, but then how would such a kernel work as a guest under all the
> spec-compliant hypervisors out there?

Ok I see your point and yes for better binary compatibility, the ops have to be
set based on runtime detection of hypervisor capabilities.

> > Ok. I guess the other option is to standardize on a new virtio transport (like
> > ivshmem2-virtio)?
>
> I haven't looked at that, but I suppose it depends on what your hypervisor
> folks are willing to accomodate.

I believe ivshmem2_virtio requires hypervisor to support PCI device emulation
(for life-cycle management of VMs), which our hypervisor may not support. A
simple shared memory and doorbell or message-queue based transport will work for
us.