[libvirt] libvirt(-java): virDomainMigrateSetMaxDowntime

[Thomas Treutner]

[forgot list]

On 07/13/2010 08:21 PM, Cole Robinson wrote:
> On 07/13/2010 01:12 PM, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
>> On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 06:56:53PM +0200, Thomas Treutner wrote:
>>> So my question: Would it be possible to extend the migrate() method
>>> resp. virDomainMigrate() function with an optional maxDowntime parameter
>>> that is passed down as QEMU_JOB_SIGNAL_MIGRATE_DOWNTIME so that
>>> qemuDomainWaitForMigrationComplete would set the value? Or are there
>>> easier ways?
>>
>> That approach really desirable IMHO, because it is already possible
>> todo this using threads, which is already neccessary for the other
>> APIs you can invoke during migration. If you care about the
>> max downtime parameter, then you almost certainly need to care about
>> calling virDomainGetJobInfo() in order to determine whether the
>> guest is actually progressing during migration or not.
>>
>
> Also sounds like it would be handy to allow globally configuring the
> default migration downtime in /etc/libvirt/qemu.conf

Yep, that would be at least something. I'd even doubt that the qemu 
default value makes sense at all, in more than one way:

1) When I set 100ms, the last jobinfo I see says approx. 80MByte 
remaining. Over Gbit Ethernet, it would take about 0.5s to transfer 
that, in the ideal case. A flooding ping says about 800ms max delay. 
Maybe there's a bit/Byte-bug lurking around somewhere in qemu? (100ms 
vs. 800ms)

2) Even if there's no bug, the 30ms look far too optimistic to me. As I 
said, unless the VM is only moderately loaded (<50%), migrations never 
finish and would run forever, I assume. I suggest that the default value 
should be higher and/or some action should be taken if the migration can 
not be done within some time or iteration limit (IIRC Xen takes the 
iteration approach). One can argue whether the action should be abortion 
or just-do-it, but I think there should be definitively *some* action to 
have a sane default without tracking a migration process in each and 
every software built on libvirt/qemu. (Yes, it's primarily a qemu issue, 
but there are lots of other optional, driver-specific things in libvirt 
too).

I'd find it even more interesting to have the downtime as a part of the 
domain config, with choices/values for timeouts and the respective 
action, but that's a lot of wishes and would need hypervisor support.


regards,

-t