Re: [PULL] virtio/vhost: cross endian support

From: Thomas Huth
Date: Tue Jul 07 2015 - 12:37:13 EST


On Thu, 2 Jul 2015 11:32:52 +0200
"Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 02, 2015 at 11:12:56AM +0200, Greg Kurz wrote:
> > On Thu, 2 Jul 2015 08:01:28 +0200
> > "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
...
> > > Yea, well - support for legacy BE guests on the new LE hosts is
> > > exactly the motivation for this.
> > >
> > > I dislike it too, but there are two redeeming properties that
> > > made me merge this:
> > >
> > > 1. It's a trivial amount of code: since we wrap host/guest accesses
> > > anyway, almost all of it is well hidden from drivers.
> > >
> > > 2. Sane platforms would never set flags like VHOST_CROSS_ENDIAN_LEGACY -
> > > and when it's clear, there's zero overhead (as some point it was
> > > tested by compiling with and without the patches, got the same
> > > stripped binary).
> > >
> > > Maybe we could create a Kconfig symbol to enforce point (2): prevent
> > > people from enabling it e.g. on x86. I will look into this - but it can
> > > be done by a patch on top, so I think this can be merged as is.
> > >
> >
> > This cross-endian *oddity* is targeting PowerPC book3s_64 processors... I
> > am not aware of any other users. Maybe create a symbol that would
> > be only selected by PPC_BOOK3S_64 ?
>
> I think some ARM systems are trying to support cross-endian
> configurations as well.
>
> Besides that, yes, this is more or less what I had in mind.

Would something simple like this already do the job:

diff --git a/drivers/vhost/Kconfig b/drivers/vhost/Kconfig
--- a/drivers/vhost/Kconfig
+++ b/drivers/vhost/Kconfig
@@ -35,6 +35,7 @@ config VHOST

config VHOST_CROSS_ENDIAN_LEGACY
bool "Cross-endian support for vhost"
+ depends on KVM_BOOK3S_64 || KVM_ARM_HOST
default n
---help---
This option allows vhost to support guests with a different byte

?

If that looks acceptable, I can submit a proper patch if you like.

Thomas
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