Re: [Qemu-devel] [RFC PATCH v0] spapr: Abort when hash table size requirement isn't met

[Bharata B Rao <bharata@linux.vnet.ibm.com>]

On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 03:27:13PM +0530, Bharata B Rao wrote:
> [This patch addresses an issue which is not prominently seen in mainline,
> but seen frequently only in David's spapr-next branch. Though it is possible
> to see this issue with mainline too, the current version of the patch
> is intended for David's tree.]
> 
> QEMU requests for hash table allocation through KVM_PPC_ALLOCATE_HTAB ioctl
> by providing the size hint via htab_shift value. Sometimes the hinted
> size requirement can't be met by the host and it returns with a lower
> value for htab_shift.
> 
> This was fine until recently where the hash table size was dependent
> on guest RAM size. With the intention of supporting memory hotplug, hash
> table size was changed to depend on maxram size recently. Since it is
> typical to have maxram size to be much higher than RAM size, the possibility
> of host not being able to meet the size requirement has increased. This
> causes two problems:
> 
> - When memory hotplug is supported, we will not be able to grow till
>   maxram if the host wasn't able to satisfy the hash table size for the
>   the full maxram range.

This is a recoverable condition where the hotplug can be gracefully failed.

> - During migration, we can end up having different htab_shift values (and
>   hence different hash table sizes) at the source and target due to
>   which the migration fails.

One possible way to solve this is to change (reduce) the maxram_size
based on the negotiated value of htab_shit and use the changed value
of maxram_size at the target during migration. However AFAIK, currently
there is no way to communicate the changed maxram_size back to libvirt,
so this solution may not be feasible.

So it is the question of whether to allow the guest to boot with reduced
hashtable size and fail migration (this is the current behaviour)

or

As done in this patch, prevent the booting of the VM altogether.

I am leaning towards the former. Thoughts ?

Regards,
Bharata.