Re: [RFC PATCH 1/1] virtio: write back features before verify

[Cornelia Huck <cohuck@redhat.com>]

On Mon, Oct 04 2021, "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@redhat.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 04, 2021 at 05:50:44PM +0200, Cornelia Huck wrote:
>> On Mon, Oct 04 2021, "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@redhat.com> wrote:
>> 
>> > On Mon, Oct 04, 2021 at 04:33:21PM +0200, Cornelia Huck wrote:
>> >> On Mon, Oct 04 2021, "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@redhat.com> wrote:
>> >> 
>> >> > On Mon, Oct 04, 2021 at 02:19:55PM +0200, Cornelia Huck wrote:
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> [cc:qemu-devel]
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> On Sat, Oct 02 2021, "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@redhat.com> wrote:
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> > ok so that's a QEMU bug. Any virtio 1.0 and up
>> >> >> > compatible device must use LE.
>> >> >> > It can also present a legacy config space where the
>> >> >> > endian depends on the guest.
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> So, how is the virtio core supposed to determine this? A
>> >> >> transport-specific callback?
>> >> >
>> >> > I'd say a field in VirtIODevice is easiest.
>> >> 
>> >> The transport needs to set this as soon as it has figured out whether
>> >> we're using legacy or not.
>> >
>> > Basically on each device config access?
>> 
>> Prior to the first one, I think. It should not change again, should it?
>
> Well yes but we never prohibited someone from poking at both ..
> Doing it on each access means we don't have state to migrate.

Yes; if it isn't too high overhead, that's probably the safest way to
handle it.

>
>> >
>> >> I guess we also need to fence off any
>> >> accesses respectively error out the device if the driver tries any
>> >> read/write operations that would depend on that knowledge?
>> >> 
>> >> And using a field in VirtIODevice would probably need some care when
>> >> migrating. Hm...
>> >
>> > It's just a shorthand to minimize changes. No need to migrate I think.
>> 
>> If we migrate in from an older QEMU, we don't know whether we are
>> dealing with legacy or not, until feature negotiation is already
>> done... don't we have to ask the transport?
>
> Right but the only thing that can happen is config access.

Checking on each config space access would be enough then.

> Well and for legacy a kick I guess.

I think any driver that does something that is not config space access,
status access, or feature bit handling without VERSION_1 being set is
neccessarily legacy? Does that really need special handling?