From: David Scott <dave.scott@citrix.com>
To: xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org, ian.jackson@eu.citrix.com
Cc: David Scott <dave.scott@citrix.com>,
wei.liu2@citrix.com, ian.campbell@citrix.com,
stefano.stabellini@eu.citrix.com
Subject: xl, libxl: add support for 'channels'
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 21:48:00 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <1411591685-25308-1-git-send-email-dave.scott@citrix.com> (raw)
Hi,
I've split out the xl string fiddling into a couple of patches to make
them easier to review. I've added __attribute__((unused)) in these commits
to keep it building and taken them away again in the last patch.
Most of the rest of the changes are to docs, and comments in idl/headers.
I think I'm too familiar with the low-level details to see where the docs
are obviously missing :-)
The blurb:
Several libvirt applications (e.g. oVirt, CloudStack) make use of 'channels':
low-bandwidth private host <-> guest communication links which resemble serial
ports. Typical uses include:
* initial VM configuration without using the network: read the config data
directly from the channel on boot
* controlling a guest agent: signal shutdown reqests, exchange clipboard data,
trigger resolution changes
This patch set re-uses the existing PV console protocol implemented by qemu
to provide this service.
If you declare a channel in your .xl file as follows:
channel = [ "connection=socket,path=/tmp/mysock,name=org.mydomain.guest-agent" ]
then an extra PV console will be added to your guest. This console has the
extra key in the frontend
name = guest-agent
which allows udev scripts in the VM to create a named device in a well-known
location (e.g. /dev/xen-channels/guest-agent, similar to the KVM /dev/vports).
The qemu process in the backend domain will proxy the data to/from the named
Unix domain socket (in this case /tmp/mysock).
Note this mechanism is intended for low-bandwidth communication only. If an
application requires a high-bandwith connection then it should use a direct
vchan connection (and not proxy it via a qemu).
Changes since v5:
* Fix use of <ctype.h> functions, and add a warning note
* Split out string fiddling into separate squash-able patches.
(Note I've added __attribute__((unused)) to keep it building)
* doc: clearly describe leading/trailing whitespace handling and that
[,="] are banned characters
* doc: mention the xenstore key 'name' (oops)
* doc: mention in the IDL and libxl.h that channels manifest as consoles
with names. Note that consoles are still considered an internal type
(in libxl_types_internal.idl) and don't appear in libxl_domain_config.
Channels are user-configurable and do appear in libxl_domain_config.
Changes since v4:
* doc: highlight that the 'output' key in the console configuration
should be considered an internal implementation artifact
* return EINVAL if a primary console has invalid configuration
* Use LOG(ERROR,... rather than LIBXL__LOG(CTX, LIBXL__LOG_ERROR
* Use an abort() when implementation code is missing
* move READ_BACKEND to the top of the file (since it's generally useful)
* Remove stray tab
Changes since v3:
* docs: coalesce the docs patch into the libxl patch
* docs: in channels.txt give high-level usage information, pitfalls and
channgle registry
* docs: move the xenstore paths into the existing console.txt, which is
referenced from xenstore-paths.markdown
* idl: rename 'kind' to 'connection'
* xl: add parser functions for comma-separated lists of pairs
Changes since v2:
* trim down the 'kinds' of channels to PTY and SOCKET -- these seem the most
useful and we can add more later
* add a channelinfo (queryable by 'channel-list') to check the state of each
channel, and for a kind=PTY discover the slave device path
* IDL: switched to KeyedUnion for both the channel and channelinfo since
each 'kind' will have different parameters (e.g. only SOCKET has PATH)
* write all the backend configuration parameters to xenstore -- where we were
using qemu -chardev some crucial information was only on the command-line.
* add LIBXL_HAVE_DEVICE_CHANNEL
* docs: replace 'should' with 'will' e.g. the backend will be connected to
a Unix domain socket
* squash all the libxl patches together into a coherent whole
* explain that there is no registry of channel names and so people should use
unique information to create them (e.g. include domain name and interface
version)
Changes since v1:
* extend xl.cfg(5)
* add docs/misc/channel.txt
* libxl_types.idl: omit unnecessary init_val = 0
* xl_cmdimpl.c: fixed over-long lines
* xl_cmdimpl.c: use xrealloc (via ARRAY_EXTEND_INIT)
* xl_cmdimpl.c: exit() on parse failure rather than ignore configuration
* libxl_create.c: use libxl__device_console_init instead of memset
* libxl_create.c: use libxl__strdup(NOGC rather than raw strdup
* libxl.c: add name=<name> to console frontend
* libxl.c: resolve the backend_domid from backend_domname
* libxl_dm.c: channels[i].devid rather than i
* libxl_dm.c: fix indentation
* libxl_dm.c: use GCSPRINTF convenience macro
Signed-off-by: David Scott <dave.scott@citrix.com>
next reply other threads:[~2014-09-24 20:48 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 27+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2014-09-24 20:48 David Scott [this message]
2014-09-24 20:48 ` [PATCH v6 for-4.5 1/5] libxl: add support for 'channels' David Scott
2014-09-25 18:56 ` Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
2014-09-26 9:12 ` Wei Liu
2014-09-24 20:48 ` [PATCH v6 for-4.5 2/5] xl: move 'replace_string' further up the file David Scott
2014-09-25 19:06 ` Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
2014-09-26 9:15 ` Wei Liu
2014-09-24 20:48 ` [PATCH v6 for-4.5 3/5] xl: add 'xstrdup' next to 'xrealloc' David Scott
2014-09-25 19:06 ` Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
2014-09-26 9:22 ` Wei Liu
2014-09-24 20:48 ` [PATCH v6 for-4.5 4/5] xl: add 'trim' and 'split_string_into_pair' functions David Scott
2014-09-25 19:06 ` Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
2014-09-26 10:09 ` Wei Liu
2014-09-26 15:45 ` Ian Jackson
2014-09-26 15:51 ` Wei Liu
2014-09-26 15:53 ` Ian Jackson
2014-09-24 20:48 ` [PATCH v6 for-4.5 5/5] xl: add support for 'channels' David Scott
2014-09-25 19:11 ` Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
2014-09-26 10:22 ` Wei Liu
2014-09-25 19:13 ` xl, libxl: " Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
2014-09-25 19:37 ` Dave Scott
2014-09-26 15:14 ` Ian Jackson
2014-09-26 19:20 ` Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
2014-10-07 16:52 ` Dave Scott
2014-10-07 16:59 ` Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
2014-10-08 11:06 ` Stefano Stabellini
2014-10-08 13:26 ` Ian Campbell
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