Re: [PATCH]: xl: pci multi-function passthrough v2

[Simon Horman <horms@verge.net.au>]

On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 12:25:46PM +0100, Gianni Tedesco wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-08-09 at 21:27 +0100, Simon Horman wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 09, 2010 at 01:00:39PM +0100, Gianni Tedesco wrote:
> > > Changes since last time:
> > >  1. Incorporate Stefanos feedback wrt. coding style, commenting
> > >     non-obvious code and making single-function a special-case of
> > >     multi-function
> > >  2. Also fix the case for passing through a single sub-function and
> > >     re-mapping it as a single-function virtual device. (ie: pfunc =
> > >     non-zero, vfunc = zero). Apparently needed for SR-IOV.
> > >  3. One-liner format change in xl pci-list-assignable to make it
> > >    print a copy-and-pasteable BDF.
> > > 8<----------------------------------------
> > > 
> > > Implement PCI pass-through for multi-function devices. The supported BDF
> > > notation is: BB:DD.* - therefore passing-through a subset of functions or
> > > remapping the function numbers is not supported except for when passing
> > > through a single function which will be a virtual function 0.
> > 
> > Is there any plan to extend this to allow for re-mapping and the like.
> > When I worked on the original multi-function support (last year)
> > this seemed to be a requirement of some people.
> 
> I am glad you asked
> 
> I initially planned to support this but it seemed like a nightmare:
> 1. The BDF notation practically becomes a regex language ;)

I don't think its reasonable to say it becomes a regex language.
But I do agree that it becomes more complex.

> 2. For HVM, if a function 0 is not passed through then you don't
>    generate an SCI interrupt for PCI hotplug.

Isn't it sufficient to make sure that the guest sees a function 0,
regardless of what the physical function number is? Or am I missing
something?

> 3. I couldn't imagine a scenario where this wasn't erroneous thing to do

I'm not sure that I understand this point.
I agree that your system should always produce a valid result.
But I think that there are other configurations that are
both valid and useful.

> But if someone can convince me that this is a worth-while thing to do
> (3) then (1) and (2) are just technical problems which can be
> overcome...

People convinced me that it was worthwhile, but I'm not those people.