Re: [Hypervisor Live Update] Notes from June 1, 2026

[Chenghao Duan]

On Sun, Jun 07, 2026 at 12:06:01PM -0400, Pasha Tatashin wrote:
> Hi everybody,
> 
> Here are the notes from the Hypervisor Live Update call that happened on 
> Monday, June 1. Thanks to everybody who was involved!
> 
> These notes are intended to bring people up to speed who could not 
> attend the call as well as keep the conversation going in between 
> meetings.
> 
> ----->o-----
> LPC 2026 Call for Proposals
> 
> The Call for Proposals for the Live Update Microconference at LPC 2026 
> is officially open. Please submit your topics and proposals before the 
> deadline on July 24th.
> 
> https://lore.kernel.org/all/ahcc3Qyuy7Oy03Iq@plex
> 
> ----->o-----
> KHO Xarray Implementation & Core Data Structures
> 
> Pratyush is collaborating with Mike on a KHO fallback allocation 
> strategy for memblock. Alongside this, Pratyush is designing a 
> serialized, sparse "KHO Xarray" data structure to lift current mapping 
> restrictions across all three memfd types (shared, hugeTLB, and 
> guest_memfd). By allowing runtime page faults and allocation tracking 
> post-preservation, this avoids flat vmalloc array scalability 
> limitations.
> 
> Potential wider use cases for the KHO Xarray were discussed:
> - MSHV sparse bitmap tracking.
> - IOMMU page table tracking (Samiullah will evaluate domain/device tree 
>   association fit).
> - PCI/VFIO sparse tracking via Bus/Device/Function (BDF) key spaces.
> 
> Slab/Cache Preservation vs. Linked Blocks:
> David Matlack noted that using an Xarray page per PCI device would be 
> too expensive given their small struct sizes. Pratyush suggested 
> preserving slab caches via dedicated kmem_cache flags to manage small, 
> arbitrary allocations. As an immediate alternative, Pasha's ongoing LUO 
> limits refactor series introduces a highly compact block-linked list 
> structure optimized for runtime file/session tracking. David Matlack 
> will review if this fits the PCI core tracking requirements.
> 
> ----->o-----
> LUO Limit Removal & PCI Core Status
> 
> LUO Refactor: Pasha is updating the LUO series to address Pratyush's 
> comments (primarily renaming iterator functions) and plans to send out 
> v2 shortly. Given that LUO is not yet in fleet production, the group 
> agreed to fast-track this into the upcoming merge window to align with 
> systemd's fdstore integration.
> 
> PCI Core v6: David Matlack sent out v6 incorporating two critical fixes 
> spotted by Sachiko regarding get/put semantics and double-retrieval 
> failures. Review tags from the live update team are needed to help 
> secure Bjorn's Ack once he returns from vacation next week.
> 
> ----->o-----
> IOMMU Persistence & Process Memory
> 
> IOMMU v3: Samiullah is addressing recent review feedback on the IOMMU 
> persistence series and intends to post v3 by the end of this week. The 
> associated development roadmap document has received positive 
> stakeholder attention.
> 
> CRIU & vm_splice: Maximilian's investigation into optimizing vm_splice 
> for copy-less data preservation remains deferred but remains in the 
> pipeline, with potential future collaboration with Google's tmpfs splice 
> efforts.

I’ve also been researching a combination solution integrating CRIU and
KHO. My approach stores all image data dumped by CRIU into memfd, then
persists those memfd objects via KHO/LUO.

I’ve reviewed the historical meeting notes and would like to clarify:
does the CRIU solution discussed in the meetings aim to save the full
set of a process’s metadata and data, or only the anonymous memory and
shared memory allocated during the process runtime?

Chenghao
> 
> ----->o-----
> guest_memfd Enlightenment & VMM Documentation
> 
> Tarun debriefed the community on his upstream presentation regarding the 
> initial guest_memfd preservation patch series (currently covering fully 
> shared mappings with page-sized folios).
> 
> Key design and architecture alignments include:
> - VM File Association: guest_memfd requires an active 'struct kvm' 
>   context to be retrieved. VMMs must preserve the parent VM file 
>   alongside guest_memfd, using LUO tokens to re-link them on the 
>   incoming kernel path. This sets the stage for future private 
>   mapping/secure EPT table tracking.
> - Relaxed Fault Logic: The group agreed to drop strict upfront pre-fault 
>   checks. Instead, standard runtime page-fault semantics will apply. If 
>   a guest page fault occurs post-preservation, it will bubble up via 
>   standard KVM_RUN ioctl exits to the VMM, which can safely pause vCPUs 
>   and retry the fault post-kexec.
> - Centralized VMM Documentation: Pasha and David Matlack proposed 
>   creating a centralized guide under live_update/vmm detailing the 
>   overall live update flow, timing constraints, and subsystem 
>   requirements to assist external QEMU and VMM developers.
> 
> ----->o-----
> Next meeting will be on Monday, June 15 at 8am PDT (UTC-7), everybody is
> welcome: https://meet.google.com/rjn-dmzu-hgq
> 
> Note: I am going to be traveling on June 15th, David Matlack is going to
> be hosting it.
> 
> Topics for the next meeting:
> - Presentation of VFIO roadmap (Vipin and David Matlack)
> - Status of KHO Xarray development and slab preservation feasibility
> - Review of PCI core changes v7 and upstream merge coordination
> - IOMMU persistence v3 review feedback
> - Detailed review of guest_memfd v2 and VMM interaction documentation
> - Review and coordination of LPC 2026 Microconference topic submissions
> - later: KHO support for Confidential VMs including page table
>   preservation and pinning
> - later: versioning support for luod to negotiate
> - later: KHO enlightenment for ASI
> - later: update on PCI preservation series and next steps
> - later: testing methodology to allow downstream consumers to qualify
>   that live update works from one version to another
> - later: reducing blackout window during live update, including deferred
>   struct page initialization
> 
> Please let me know if you'd like to propose additional topics for
> discussion, thank you!