From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:46002) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VCaOH-0004Et-DR for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 22 Aug 2013 15:18:02 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VCaO8-0000YE-SS for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 22 Aug 2013 15:17:53 -0400 Received: from mail-we0-x22d.google.com ([2a00:1450:400c:c03::22d]:63210) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VCaO8-0000Y0-Lq for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 22 Aug 2013 15:17:44 -0400 Received: by mail-we0-f173.google.com with SMTP id x54so2061895wes.18 for ; Thu, 22 Aug 2013 12:17:44 -0700 (PDT) Sender: Paolo Bonzini Message-ID: <521663A9.6040207@redhat.com> Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 21:16:57 +0200 From: Paolo Bonzini MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <1377187852-11192-1-git-send-email-pbonzini@redhat.com> <87mwo9smjf.fsf@codemonkey.ws> <52164FFD.5030101@redhat.com> In-Reply-To: <52164FFD.5030101@redhat.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] pvpanic plans? List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: Laszlo Ersek Cc: pkrempa@redhat.com, marcel.a@redhat.com, libvir-list@redhat.com, hutao@cn.fujitsu.com, mst@redhat.com, qemu-devel@nongnu.org, armbru@redhat.com, rhod@redhat.com, kraxel@redhat.com, Anthony Liguori , lcapitulino@redhat.com, afaerber@suse.de Il 22/08/2013 19:53, Laszlo Ersek ha scritto: >> > We should just introduce a simple watchdog device based on virtio and >> > call it a day. Then it's cross platform, solves the guest enumeration >> > problem, and libvirt can detect the presence of the new device. > If the guest doesn't initialize the proposed virtio-panic device, then > it will lie dormant too, just like the current pvpanic device. That's good. > > However a new (standalone) virtio device will take up yet another PCI > function (a full device if you want it to be hotpluggable). PCI > functions are scarcer than ioports. Not just that. Panic notifiers are called in a substantially unknown environment, with locks taken or interrupts already set up. This is why we went for a simple ISA device. Configuration via ACPI follows naturally from there, and anyway any other standard of the day would have had the same problem with Windows. At some point we had ACPI methods instead of a simple ioport write, but we had to remove that because the ACPI subsystem might have had its lock taken. Also, a virtio watchdog device makes little sense, IMHO. PV makes sense if emulation has insufficient performance, excessive CPU usage, or excessive complexity. We already have both an ISA and a PCI watchdog, and they serve their purpose wonderfully. Paolo