Re: [KVM PATCH v4 2/2] kvm: add support for irqfd via eventfd-notificationinterface

From: Avi Kivity
Date: Thu May 07 2009 - 10:34:27 EST


Gregory Haskins wrote:
One thing I was thinking here was that I could create a flag for the
kvm_irqfd() function for something like "KVM_IRQFD_MODE_CLEAR". This
flag when specified at creation time will cause the event to execute a
clear operation instead of a set when triggered. That way, the default
mode is an edge-triggered set. The non-default mode is to trigger a
clear. Level-triggered ints could therefore create two irqfds, one for
raising, the other for clearing.

That's my second choice option.

An alternative is to abandon the use of eventfd, and allow the irqfd to
be a first-class anon-fd. The parameters passed to the write/signal()
function could then indicate the desired level. The disadvantage would
be that it would not be compatible with eventfd, so we would need to
decide if the tradeoff is worth it.

I would really like to keep using eventfd. Which is why I asked Davide about the prospects of direct callbacks (vs wakeups).

OTOH, I suspect level triggered interrupts will be primarily in the
legacy domain, so perhaps we do not need to worry about it too much. Therefore, another option is that we *could* simply set the stake in the
ground that legacy/level cannot use irqfd.

This is my preferred option. For a virtio-net-server in the kernel, we'd service its eventfd in qemu, raising and lowering the pci interrupt in the traditional way.

But we'd still need to know when to lower the interrupt. How?

--
error compiling committee.c: too many arguments to function

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