Re: [Patch v5 0/3] Introduce a driver to support host accelerated access to Microsoft Azure Blob for Azure VM

From: Greg Kroah-Hartman
Date: Mon Oct 11 2021 - 13:58:47 EST


On Mon, Oct 11, 2021 at 05:46:48PM +0000, Long Li wrote:
> > Subject: Re: [Patch v5 0/3] Introduce a driver to support host accelerated access
> > to Microsoft Azure Blob for Azure VM
> >
> > Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> >
> > ...
> > >
> > > Not to mention the whole crazy idea of "let's implement our REST api
> > > that used to go over a network connection over an ioctl instead!"
> > > That's the main problem that you need to push back on here.
> > >
> > > What is forcing you to put all of this into the kernel in the first
> > > place? What's wrong with the userspace network connection/protocol
> > > that you have today?
> > >
> > > Does this mean that we now have to implement all REST apis that people
> > > dream up as ioctl interfaces over a hyperv transport? That would be
> > > insane.
> >
> > As far as I understand, the purpose of the driver is to replace a "slow"
> > network connection to API endpoint with a "fast" transport over Vmbus. So
> > what if instead of implementing this new driver we just use Hyper-V Vsock and
> > move API endpoint to the host?
>
> Hi Vitaly,
>
> We looked at Hyper-V Vsock when designing this driver. The problem is that the Hyper-V device model of Vsock can't support the data throughput and scale needed for Blobs. Vsock is mostly used for management tasks.
>
> The usage of Blob in Azure justifies an dedicated VMBUS channel (and sub-channels) for a new VSP/VSC driver.

Why not just fix the vsock code to handle data better? That way all
users of it would benefit.

thanks,

greg k-h