Re: [PATCH 4/4] vhost/vsock: re-scan TX virtqueue on device start

[Stefano Garzarella <sgarzare@redhat.com>]

On Fri, Jun 12, 2026 at 07:57:18PM +0300, Andrey Drobyshev wrote:
>During QEMU CPR live-update (and VHOST_RESET_OWNER in general) the guest
>keeps running while the host drops and later re-attaches vhost backends.
>If the guest adds a buffer to the TX virtqueue (guest->host) and kicks
>while the backend is temporarily NULL (between vhost_vsock_drop_backends()
>and the next vhost_vsock_start()), then the kick is delivered to the
>vhost worker, handle_tx_kick() sees a NULL backend and returns, and the
>kick signal is consumed.  The buffer is then left in the ring.
>
>Then upon device start vhost_vsock_start() only re-kicks the RX send
>worker, never the TX VQ, so the buffer is processed only if the guest
>happens to kick again.  But if the guest itself is now waiting for data
>from the host, it will never kick TX VQ again, and we end up in a
>deadlock.
>
>The deadlock is reproduced during active host->guest socat data transfer
>under multiple consecutive CPR live-update's.
>
>To fix this, in vhost_vsock_start(), after kicking the RX send worker, also
>queue the TX vq poll so any buffers the guest enqueued while we were paused
>get scanned.

Again, it seems like we're fixing an issue that existed before this 
series, but IIUC without support for VHOST_RESET_OWNER, this could never 
have happened, so the wording should be changed to make it clear that 
this is can happen only with the new VHOST_RESET_OWNER support.

In addition, this patch must also be applied before the 
VHOST_RESET_OWNER support or merged into it.

>
>Signed-off-by: Andrey Drobyshev <andrey.drobyshev@virtuozzo.com>
>---
> drivers/vhost/vsock.c | 6 ++++++
> 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+)
>
>diff --git a/drivers/vhost/vsock.c b/drivers/vhost/vsock.c
>index bcaba36becd7..1fcfe71d18be 100644
>--- a/drivers/vhost/vsock.c
>+++ b/drivers/vhost/vsock.c
>@@ -655,6 +655,12 @@ static int vhost_vsock_start(struct vhost_vsock *vsock)
> 	 */
> 	vhost_vq_work_queue(&vsock->vqs[VSOCK_VQ_RX], &vsock->send_pkt_work);
>
>+	/*
>+	 * Some packets might've also been queued in TX VQ.  Re-scan it here,
>+	 * mirroring the RX send-worker kick above.
>+	 */

Can we also mention that this is related to VHOST_RESET_OWNER?

Thanks,
Stefano

>+	vhost_poll_queue(&vsock->vqs[VSOCK_VQ_TX].poll);
>+
> 	mutex_unlock(&vsock->dev.mutex);
> 	return 0;
>
>-- 
>2.47.1
>