Re: [PATCH 4/4] hvmloader: add support to load extra ACPI tables from qemu

[Haozhong Zhang <haozhong.zhang@intel.com>]

On 01/21/16 03:25, Jan Beulich wrote:
> >>> On 21.01.16 at 10:10, <guangrong.xiao@linux.intel.com> wrote:
> > On 01/21/2016 04:53 PM, Jan Beulich wrote:
> >>>>> On 21.01.16 at 09:25, <guangrong.xiao@linux.intel.com> wrote:
> >>> On 01/21/2016 04:18 PM, Jan Beulich wrote:
> >>>> Yes. But then - other than you said above - it still looks to me as
> >>>> if the split between PMEM and PBLK is arranged for by firmware?
> >>>
> >>> Yes. But OS/Hypervisor is not excepted to dynamically change its configure
> >>> (re-split),
> >>> i,e, for PoV of OS/Hypervisor, it is static.
> >>
> >> Exactly, that has been my understanding. And hence the PMEM part
> >> could be under the hypervisor's control, while the PBLK part could be
> >> Dom0's responsibility.
> >>
> > 
> > I am not sure if i have understood your point. What your suggestion is that
> > leave PMEM for hypervisor and all other parts (PBLK and _DSM handling) to
> > Dom0? If yes, we should:
> > a) handle hotplug in hypervisor (new PMEM add/remove) that causes hyperivsor
> >     interpret ACPI SSDT/DSDT.
> 
> Why would this be different from ordinary memory hotplug, where
> Dom0 deals with the ACPI CA interaction, notifying Xen about the
> added memory?
>

The process of NVDIMM hotplug is similar to the ordinary memory
hotplug, and seemingly possible to support it in Xen hypervisor like
ordinary memory hotplug.

> > b) some _DSMs control PMEM so you should filter out these kind of _DSMs and
> >     handle them in hypervisor.
> 
> Not if (see above) following the model we currently have in place.
>

You mean let dom0 linux evaluates those _DSMs and interact with
hypervisor if necessary (e.g. XENPF_mem_hotadd for memory hotplug)?

> > c) hypervisor should mange PMEM resource pool and partition it to multiple
> >     VMs.
> 
> Yes.
>

But I Still do not quite understand this part: why must pmem resource
management and partition be done in hypervisor?

I mean if we allow the following steps of operations (for example)
(1) partition pmem in dom 0
(2) get address and size of each partition (part_addr, part_size)
(3) call a hypercall like nvdimm_memory_mapping(d, part_addr, part_size, gpfn) to
    map a partition to the address gpfn in dom d.
Only the last step requires hypervisor. Would anything be wrong if we
allow above operations?

Ha