Re: [PATCH net] virtio-net: reject small vring sizes

["Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@redhat.com>]

On Tue, Apr 25, 2023 at 09:41:35AM +0000, Alvaro Karsz wrote:
> > So, let's add some funky flags in virtio device to block out
> > features, have core compare these before and after,
> > detect change, reset and retry?
> 
> In the virtnet case, we'll decide which features to block based on the ring size.
> 2 < ring < MAX_FRAGS + 2  -> BLOCK GRO + MRG_RXBUF
> ring < 2  -> BLOCK GRO + MRG_RXBUF + CTRL_VQ

why MRG_RXBUF? what does it matter?

> So we'll need a new virtio callback instead of flags.
> Furthermore, other virtio drivers may decide which features to block based on parameters different than ring size (I don't have a good example at the moment).
> So maybe we should leave it to the driver to handle (during probe), and offer a virtio core function to re-negotiate the features?
> 
> In the solution I'm working on, I expose a new virtio core function that resets the device and renegotiates the received features.
> + A new virtio_config_ops callback peek_vqs_len to peek at the VQ lengths before calling find_vqs. (The callback must be called after the features negotiation)
> 
> So, the flow is something like:
> 
> * Super early in virtnet probe, we peek at the VQ lengths and decide if we are 
>    using small vrings, if so, we reset and renegotiate the features.

Using which APIs? What does peek_vqs_len do and why does it matter that
it is super early?

> * We continue normally and create the VQs.
> * We check if the created rings are small.
>    If they are and some blocked features were negotiated anyway (may occur if 
>    the re-negotiation fails, or if the transport has no implementation for 
>    peek_vqs_len), we fail probe.
>    If the ring is small and the features are ok, we mark the virtnet device as 
>    vring_small and fixup some variables.
>  
> 
> peek_vqs_len is needed because we must know the VQ length before calling init_vqs.
> 
> During virtnet_find_vqs we check the following:
> vi->has_cvq
> vi->big_packets
> vi->mergeable_rx_bufs
> 
> But these will change if the ring is small..
> 
> (Of course, another solution will be to re-negotiate features after init_vqs, but this will make a big mess, tons of things to clean and reconfigure)
> 
> 
> The 2 < ring < MAX_FRAGS + 2 part is ready, I have tested a few cases and it is working.
> 
> I'm considering splitting the effort into 2 series.
> A 2 < ring < MAX_FRAGS + 2  series, and a follow up series with the ring < 2 case.
> 
> I'm also thinking about sending the first series as an RFC soon, so it will be more broadly tested.
> 
> What do you think?

Lots of work spilling over to transports.

And I especially don't like that it slows down boot on good path.

I have the following idea:
- add a blocked features value in virtio_device
- before calling probe, core saves blocked features
- if probe fails, checks blocked features.
  if any were added, reset, negotiate all features
  except blocked ones and do the validate/probe dance again


This will mean mostly no changes to drivers: just check condition,
block feature and fail probe.


-- 
MST