Re: [PATCH] vdpa/mlx5: Use random MAC for the vdpa net instance

From: Jason Wang
Date: Wed Dec 02 2020 - 08:50:22 EST



On 2020/12/2 下午5:23, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
On Wed, Dec 02, 2020 at 07:57:14AM +0200, Eli Cohen wrote:
On Wed, Dec 02, 2020 at 12:18:36PM +0800, Jason Wang wrote:
On 2020/12/1 下午5:23, Cindy Lu wrote:
On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 11:33 PM Michael S. Tsirkin<mst@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 06:41:45PM +0800, Cindy Lu wrote:
On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 5:33 PM Michael S. Tsirkin<mst@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 11:27:59AM +0200, Eli Cohen wrote:
On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 04:00:51AM -0500, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 08:27:46AM +0200, Eli Cohen wrote:
On Sun, Nov 29, 2020 at 03:08:22PM -0500, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
On Sun, Nov 29, 2020 at 08:43:51AM +0200, Eli Cohen wrote:
We should not try to use the VF MAC address as that is used by the
regular (e.g. mlx5_core) NIC implementation. Instead, use a random
generated MAC address.

Suggested by: Cindy Lu<lulu@xxxxxxxxxx>
Fixes: 1a86b377aa21 ("vdpa/mlx5: Add VDPA driver for supported mlx5 devices")
Signed-off-by: Eli Cohen<elic@xxxxxxxxxx>
I didn't realise it's possible to use VF in two ways
with and without vdpa.
Using a VF you can create quite a few resources, e.g. send queues
recieve queues, virtio_net queues etc. So you can possibly create
several instances of vdpa net devices and nic net devices.

Could you include a bit more description on the failure
mode?
Well, using the MAC address of the nic vport is wrong since that is the
MAC of the regular NIC implementation of mlx5_core.
Right but ATM it doesn't coexist with vdpa so what's the problem?

This call is wrong: mlx5_query_nic_vport_mac_address()

Is switching to a random mac for such an unusual
configuration really justified?
Since I can't use the NIC's MAC address, I have two options:
1. To get the MAC address as was chosen by the user administering the
NIC. This should invoke the set_config callback. Unfortunately this
is not implemented yet.

2. Use a random MAC address. This is OK since if (1) is implemented it
can always override this random configuration.

It looks like changing a MAC could break some guests,
can it not?

No, it will not. The current version of mlx5 VDPA does not allow regular
NIC driver and VDPA to co-exist. I have patches ready that enable that
from steering point of view. I will post them here once other patches on
which they depend will be merged.

https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/netdev/patch/20201120230339.651609-12-saeedm@xxxxxxxxxx/
Could you be more explicit on the following points:
- which configuration is broken ATM (as in, two device have identical
macs? any other issues)?
The only wrong thing is the call to mlx5_query_nic_vport_mac_address().
It's not breaking anything yet is wrong. The random MAC address setting
is required for the steering patches.
Okay so I'm not sure the Fixes tag at least is appropriate if it's a
dependency of a new feature.

- why won't device MAC change from guest point of view?

It's lack of implementation in qemu as far as I know.
Sorry not sure I understand. What's not implemented in QEMU?

HI Michael, there are some bug in qemu to set_config, this will fix in future,
But this patch is still needed, because without this patch the mlx
driver will give an 0 mac address to qemu
and qemu will overwrite the default mac address. This will cause traffic down.
Hmm the patch description says VF mac address, not 0 address. Confused.
If there's no mac we can clear VIRTIO_NET_F_MAC and have guest
use a random value ...
I'm not sure this can work for all types of vDPA (e.g it could not be a
learning bridge in the swtich).


hi Michael,
I have tried as your suggestion, seems even remove the
VIRTIO_NET_F_MAC the qemu will still call get_cinfig and overwrite the
default address in VM,
This looks a bug in qemu, in guest driver we had:

    /* Configuration may specify what MAC to use.  Otherwise random. */
    if (virtio_has_feature(vdev, VIRTIO_NET_F_MAC))
        virtio_cread_bytes(vdev,
                   offsetof(struct virtio_net_config, mac),
                   dev->dev_addr, dev->addr_len);
    else
        eth_hw_addr_random(dev);


this process is like
vdpa _init -->qemu call get_config ->mlx driver will give an mac
address with all 0-->
qemu will not check this mac address and use it --> overwrite the mac
address in qemu

So for my understanding there are several method to fix this problem

1, qemu check the mac address, if the mac address is all 0, qemu will
ignore it and set the random mac address to mlx driver.
So my understanding is that, if mac address is all 0, vDPA parent should not
advertise VIRTIO_NET_F_MAC. And qemu should emulate this feature as you did:
Thinking it over, at least in mlx5, I should always advertise
VIRTIO_NET_F_MAC and set a non zero MAC value. The source of the MAC can
be either randomly generated value by mlx5_vdpa or by a management tool.
This is important becauase we should not let the VM modify the MAC. If
we do it can set a MAC value identical to the mlx5 NIC driver and can
kidnap traffic that was not destined to it.

In addition, when VIRTIO_NET_F_MAC is published, attempts to change the
MAC address from the VM should result in error.
That is not what the spec says though.
VIRTIO_NET_F_MAC only says whether mac is valid in the config space.
Whether guest can control that depends on VIRTIO_NET_F_CTRL_MAC_ADDR:

The VIRTIO_NET_CTRL_MAC_ADDR_SET command is used to set the default MAC address which rx
filtering accepts (and if VIRTIO_NET_F_MAC_ADDR has been negotiated, this will be reflected in mac in
config space).
The command-specific-data for VIRTIO_NET_CTRL_MAC_ADDR_SET is the 6-byte MAC address.


Consider VIRTIO_NET_CTRL_MAC_ADDR_SET is not supported now. What Eli proposed here should work?

Thanks