Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v3 0/3] Use of unique identifier for pairing virtio and passthrough devices...

[si-wei liu <si-wei.liu@oracle.com>]

On 7/2/2018 9:14 AM, Roman Kagan wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 29, 2018 at 05:19:03PM -0500, Venu Busireddy wrote:
>> The patch set "Enable virtio_net to act as a standby for a passthru
>> device" [1] deals with live migration of guests that use passthrough
>> devices. However, that scheme uses the MAC address for pairing
>> the virtio device and the passthrough device. The thread "netvsc:
>> refactor notifier/event handling code to use the failover framework"
>> [2] discusses an alternate mechanism, such as using an UUID, for pairing
>> the devices. Based on that discussion, proposals "Add "Group Identifier"
>> to virtio PCI capabilities." [3] and "RFC: Use of bridge devices to
>> store pairing information..." [4] were made.
>>
>> The current patch set includes all the feedback received for proposals [3]
>> and [4]. For the sake of completeness, patch for the virtio specification
>> is also included here. Following is the updated proposal.
>>
>> 1. Extend the virtio specification to include a new virtio PCI capability
>>     "VIRTIO_PCI_CAP_GROUP_ID_CFG".
>>
>> 2. Enhance the QEMU CLI to include a "failover-group-id" option to the
>>     virtio device. The "failover-group-id" is a 64 bit value.
>>
>> 3. Enhance the QEMU CLI to include a "failover-group-id" option to the
>>     Red Hat PCI bridge device (support for the i440FX model).
>>
>> 4. Add a new "pcie-downstream" device, with the option
>>     "failover-group-id" (support for the Q35 model).
>>
>> 5. The operator creates a 64 bit unique identifier, failover-group-id.
>>
>> 6. When the virtio device is created, the operator uses the
>>     "failover-group-id" option (for example, '-device
>>     virtio-net-pci,failover-group-id=<identifier>') and specifies the
>>     failover-group-id created in step 4.
>>
>>     QEMU stores the failover-group-id in the virtio device's configuration
>>     space in the capability "VIRTIO_PCI_CAP_GROUP_ID_CFG".
>>
>> 7. When assigning a PCI device to the guest in passthrough mode, the
>>     operator first creates a bridge using the "failover-group-id" option
>>     (for example, '-device pcie-downstream,failover-group-id=<identifier>')
>>     to specify the failover-group-id created in step 4, and then attaches
>>     the passthrough device to the bridge.
>>
>>     QEMU stores the failover-group-id in the configuration space of the
>>     bridge as Vendor-Specific capability (0x09). The "Vendor" here is
>>     not to be confused with a specific organization. Instead, the vendor
>>     of the bridge is QEMU.
>>
>> 8. Patch 4 in patch series "Enable virtio_net to act as a standby for
>>     a passthru device" [1] needs to be modified to use the UUID values
>>     present in the bridge's configuration space and the virtio device's
>>     configuration space instead of the MAC address for pairing the devices.
> I'm still missing a few bits in the overall scheme.
>
> Is the guest supposed to acknowledge the support for PT-PV failover?

Yes. We are leveraging virtio's feature negotiation mechanism for that. 
Guest which does not acknowledge the support will not have PT plugged in.

> Should the PT device be visibile to the guest before it acknowledges the
> support for failover?
No. QEMU will only expose PT device after guest acknowledges the support 
through virtio's feature negotiation.

>    How is this supposed to work with legacy guests that don't support it?
Only PV device will be exposed on legacy guest.

>
> Is the guest supposed to signal the datapath switch to the host?
No, guest doesn't need to be initiating datapath switch at all. However, 
QMP events may be generated when exposing or hiding the PT device 
through hot plug/unplug to facilitate host to switch datapath.

>
> Is the scheme going to be applied/extended to other transports (vmbus,
> virtio-ccw, etc.)?
Well, it depends on the use case, and how feasible it can be extended to 
other transport due to constraints and transport specifics.

> Is the failover group concept going to be used beyond PT-PV network
> device failover?
Although the concept of failover group is generic, the implementation 
itself may vary.

-Siwei


>
> Thanks,
> Roman.
>
>