Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] rust: pci: skip probing VFs if driver doesn't support VFs

Jason Gunthorpe
2025-10-02T17:56:12Z

On Thu, Oct 02, 2025 at 07:37:45PM +0200, Danilo Krummrich wrote:
> > The driver to operate the function in "vGPU" mode as indicated by the
> > register has to be in nova-core, since there is only one device ID.
>
> Yes, the PF driver on the host and the PF (from VM perspective) driver in the VM
> have to be that same. But the VF driver on the host can still be a seaparate
> one.

In most cases it is going to be bound to a vfio driver..

However, if you actually want a DRM subsystem device on the VF without
a VM I don't know why you'd use a different driver than the one used
by the VM on the very same VF, with the very same register programming
model..

> > I think it would be good to have Zhi clarify more of this, but from
> > what I understand are at least three activites comingled all together:
> >
> > 1) Boot the PF in "vGPU" mode so it can enable SRIOV
>
> Ok, this might be where the confusion above comes from. When I talk about
> nova-core in vGPU mode I mean nova-core running in the VM on the (from VM
> perspective) PF.

I would call this nova-core running on a VF (assigned to a VM)

Not sure "vgpu" is a helpful word here, lets try to talk about what
.ko's and struct device_drivers's the various codes should live in..

> But you seem to mean nova-core running on the host PF with vGPU on top? That of
> course has to be in nova-core.

Yes, #1 would be implemented as part of nova-core.ko and it's
pci_driver. As I understand it around firmware loading nova-core has
to tell the FW if it wants to enable "vGPU" mode or not.

If it doesn't then the sriov_configure op should be inhibited and #2
disabled. If it does then sriov_configure should work, #2 is enabled,
and DRM on the PF is disabled.

> > 2) Enable SRIOV and profile VFs to allocate HW resources to them
>
> I think that's partially in nova-core and partially in vGPU; nova-core providing
> the abstraction of the corresponding firmware / hardware interfaces and vGPU
> controlling the semantics of the resource handling?

> This is what I thought vGPU has a secondary part for where it binds to nova-core
> through the auxiliary bus, i.e. vGPU consisting out of two drivers actually; the
> VFIO parts and a "per VF resource controller".

This is certainly one option, you can put #2 in an aux driver of the
PF in a nova-sriov.ko module that is fully divorced from VFIO. It
might go along with a nova-fwctl.ko module too.

You could also just embed it in nova-core.ko and have it activate when
the PF is booted in "vGPU" mode.

Broadly I would suggest the latter. aux devices make most sense to
cross subsystems. Micro splitting a single driver with aux devices
will make more of a mess than required. Though a good motivating
reason would be if nova-srvio.ko is large.

> > 3) VFIO variant driver to convert the VF into a "VM PF" with whatever
> > mediation and enhancement needed
>
> That should be vGPU only land.

I think it is clear this part should be in a vfio-pci-nova.ko

Then you have two more:

4) A PCI driver in a VM that creates a DRM subsystem device

This is nova-core.ko + nova-drm.ko

5) A VF driver that creates a DRM subsystem device without a VM

Zhi says the device can't do this, but lets assume it could, then I
would expect this to be nova-core.ko + nova-drm.ko, same as #4.

Jason