Re: [RFC] virtio-net: help live migrate SR-IOV devices

[Stephen Hemminger <stephen@networkplumber.org>]

On Sun, 3 Dec 2017 11:14:37 +0200
achiad shochat <achiad.mellanox@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 3 December 2017 at 07:05, Michael S. Tsirkin <mst@redhat.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, Dec 01, 2017 at 12:08:59PM -0800, Shannon Nelson wrote:  
> >> On 11/30/2017 6:11 AM, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:  
> >> > On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 10:08:45AM +0200, achiad shochat wrote:  
> >> > > Re. problem #2:
> >> > > Indeed the best way to address it seems to be to enslave the VF driver
> >> > > netdev under a persistent anchor netdev.
> >> > > And it's indeed desired to allow (but not enforce) PV netdev and VF
> >> > > netdev to work in conjunction.
> >> > > And it's indeed desired that this enslavement logic work out-of-the box.
> >> > > But in case of PV+VF some configurable policies must be in place (and
> >> > > they'd better be generic rather than differ per PV technology).
> >> > > For example - based on which characteristics should the PV+VF coupling
> >> > > be done? netvsc uses MAC address, but that might not always be the
> >> > > desire.  
> >> >
> >> > It's a policy but not guest userspace policy.
> >> >
> >> > The hypervisor certainly knows.
> >> >
> >> > Are you concerned that someone might want to create two devices with the
> >> > same MAC for an unrelated reason?  If so, hypervisor could easily set a
> >> > flag in the virtio device to say "this is a backup, use MAC to find
> >> > another device".  
> >>
> >> This is something I was going to suggest: a flag or other configuration on
> >> the virtio device to help control how this new feature is used.  I can
> >> imagine this might be useful to control from either the hypervisor side or
> >> the VM side.
> >>
> >> The hypervisor might want to (1) disable it (force it off), (2) enable it
> >> for VM choice, or (3) force it on for the VM.  In case (2), the VM might be
> >> able to chose whether it wants to make use of the feature, or stick with the
> >> bonding solution.
> >>
> >> Either way, the kernel is making a feature available, and the user (VM or
> >> hypervisor) is able to control it by selecting the feature based on the
> >> policy desired.
> >>
> >> sln  
> >
> > I'm not sure what's the feature that is available here.
> >
> > I saw this as a flag that says "this device shares backend with another
> > network device which can be found using MAC, and that backend should be
> > preferred".  kernel then forces configuration which uses that other
> > backend - as long as it exists.
> >
> > However, please Cc virtio-dev mailing list if we are doing this since
> > this is a spec extension.
> >
> > --
> > MST  
> 
> 
> Can someone please explain why assume a virtio device is there at all??
> I specified a case where there isn't any.
> 
> I second Jacob - having a netdev of one device driver enslave a netdev
> of another device driver is an awkward a-symmetric model.
> Regardless of whether they share the same backend device.
> Only I am not sure the Linux Bond is the right choice.
> e.g one may well want to use the virtio device also when the
> pass-through device is available, e.g for multicasts, east-west
> traffic, etc.
> I'm not sure the Linux Bond fits that functionality.
> And, as I hear in this thread, it is hard to make it work out of the box.
> So I think the right thing would be to write a new dedicated module
> for this purpose.
> 
> Re policy -
> Indeed the HV can request a policy from the guest but that's not a
> claim for the virtio device enslaving the pass-through device.
> Any policy can be queried by the upper enslaving device.
> 
> Bottom line - I do not see a single reason to have the virtio netdev
> (nor netvsc or any other PV netdev) enslave another netdev by itself.
> If we'd do it right with netvsc from the beginning we wouldn't need
> this discussion at all...

There are several issues with transparent migration.
The first is that the SR-IOV device needs to be shut off for earlier
in the migration process.
Next, the SR-IOV device in the migrated go guest environment maybe different.
It might not exist at all, it might be at a different PCI address, or it
could even be a different vendor/speed/model.
Keeping a virtual network device around allows persisting the connectivity,
during the process.