Re: [PATCH 1/7] KVM: userspace interface

[Anthony Liguori]

Avi Kivity wrote:
> Anthony Liguori wrote:
> > > We started using VT only for 64 bit, then added 32 bit, then 16-bit 
> > > protected, then vm86 and real mode.  We'd transfer the x86 state on 
> > > each mode change, but it was (a) fragile (b) considered unclean.
> > >
> > > You're right that "big real" mode is not supported, but so far that 
> > > hasn't been a problem.  Do you know of an OS that needs big real mode?
> >
> > AFAIK the SLES boot splash patches to grub use it.  It's definitely a 
> > requirement.  Currently, there is an effort in Xen to use QEMU for 
> > partial emulation.  Hopefully, it will be there for the next release.
>
> Ouch.  Boot splash patches.
>
> Well, we had real mode in qemu once, we can put it there again.
>
> > Allowing QEMU to do emulation also will help with IO performance.  
> > Instead of having to take many trips to userspace for MMIO 
> > especially, you can allow QEMU to execute a certain number of basic 
> > blocks and then return.  Minimizing trips between userspace and the 
> > kernel is going to be critical performance wise.
>
> My plan was to allow userspace to register certain mmio addresses for 
> cacheing, so that if the guest code had a code sequence like
>
>  writel(dst_x_reg, x);
>  writel(dst_y_reg, y)
>  writel(width_reg, w);
>  writel(height_reg, h);
>  writel(blt_cmd_reg, fill);
>
> then kvm would cache the first four in a mmap()able memory area and 
> only exit to userspace on the fifth.  Userspace would then read the 
> cached registers from memory and emulate the command.

Letting QEMU do a certain amount of emulation after every transition 
would the problem in a more elegant and generic way.

> This saves userspace transitions but not guest/host switches.  I'm 
> counting on Intel and AMD to reduce the cost of these, but it will 
> probably never be cheap.
>
> Paravirtualized drivers are also an option; we may try to keep 
> compatibility with Xen's.

Please no!  With proper device emulation, paravirtualized drivers 
shouldn't be necessary.

> > I've been tossing around the idea of doing partial IO emulation in 
> > the kernel.  If you could sync the device states between userspace 
> > and kernel, it should be possible.  Given that the you're already in 
> > the kernel at VMEXIT time, if you could feed something right to the 
> > block driver or network driver, you ought to be able to get pretty 
> > darn good performance.
>
> Do you mean putting the device model into the kernel?

Perhaps part of it.  Still an idea at this point.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori
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