Re: [PATCH v16 5/5] virtio-balloon: VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_CTRL_VQ

From: Wei Wang
Date: Wed Oct 11 2017 - 02:01:30 EST


On 10/10/2017 11:15 PM, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
On Mon, Oct 02, 2017 at 04:38:01PM +0000, Wang, Wei W wrote:
On Sunday, October 1, 2017 11:19 AM, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 12:05:54PM +0800, Wei Wang wrote:
+static void ctrlq_send_cmd(struct virtio_balloon *vb,
+ struct virtio_balloon_ctrlq_cmd *cmd,
+ bool inbuf)
+{
+ struct virtqueue *vq = vb->ctrl_vq;
+
+ ctrlq_add_cmd(vq, cmd, inbuf);
+ if (!inbuf) {
+ /*
+ * All the input cmd buffers are replenished here.
+ * This is necessary because the input cmd buffers are lost
+ * after live migration. The device needs to rewind all of
+ * them from the ctrl_vq.
Confused. Live migration somehow loses state? Why is that and why is it a good
idea? And how do you know this is migration even?
Looks like all you know is you got free page end. Could be any reason for this.

I think this would be something that the current live migration lacks - what the
device read from the vq is not transferred during live migration, an example is the
stat_vq_elem:
Line 476 at https://github.com/qemu/qemu/blob/master/hw/virtio/virtio-balloon.c
This does not touch guest memory though it just manipulates
internal state to make it easier to migrate.
It's transparent to guest as migration should be.

For all the things that are added to the vq and need to be held by the device
to use later need to consider the situation that live migration might happen at any
time and they need to be re-taken from the vq by the device on the destination
machine.

So, even without this live migration optimization feature, I think all the things that are
added to the vq for the device to hold, need a way for the device to rewind back from
the vq - re-adding all the elements to the vq is a trick to keep a record of all of them
on the vq so that the device side rewinding can work.

Please let me know if anything is missed or if you have other suggestions.
IMO migration should pass enough data source to destination for
destination to continue where source left off without guest help.


I'm afraid it would be difficult to pass the entire VirtQueueElement to the destination. I think
that would also be the reason that stats_vq_elem chose to rewind from the guest vq, which re-do the
virtqueue_pop() --> virtqueue_map_desc() steps (the QEMU virtual address to the guest physical
address relationship may be changed on the destination).


How about another direction which would be easier - using two 32-bit device specific configuration registers,
Host2Guest and Guest2Host command registers, to replace the ctrlq for command exchange:

The flow can be as follows:

1) Before Host sending a StartCMD, it flushes the free_page_vq in case any old free page hint is left there;

2) Host writes StartCMD to the Host2Guest register, and notifies the guest;

3) Upon receiving a configuration notification, Guest reads the Host2Guest register, and detaches all the used buffers from free_page_vq;
(then for each StartCMD, the free_page_vq will always have no obsolete free page hints, right? )

4) Guest start report free pages:
4.1) Host may actively write StopCMD to the Host2Guest register before the guest finishes; or
4.2) Guest finishes reporting, write StopCMD the Guest2HOST register, which traps to QEMU, to stop.


Best,
Wei