[libvirt] [RFC] 5-level paging Support

[Feng, Shaohe]

Hi all,

Now both qemu and kvm support 5-level paging.

We can start qemu with a "cpu,+la57" to set 57-bit vitrual address space.

So VM can be aware that it need to enable  5-level paging.


We can also set another "cpu,phys-bits=52" to set the VM physical 
address space.

Actually, VM can still turn on 5 level paging even without 
"phys-bits=52", yet this means

the guest physical address width are limited, meaning less practical 
benefits.


In to support 5-level paging, I suggest to add  two attribute for the 
domain cpu element in libvirt.

<cpu la57='yes', phys-bits='52'\>

Here we need to be able to set  phys-bits  directly, because it is 
potentially migration sensitive.

If la57='no',  libvirt will ignore phys-bits, no matter whether hardware 
support la57.

If la57='yes',  libvirt will probe the host capability, and will throw 
error if hardware does support la57.

If la57='yes',  even phys-bits less than 52, libvirt will also pass it 
to qemu though less practical benefits.



[info]

[1] [Qemu-devel] [PATCH]x86: implement la57 paging mode 
<https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2016-12/msg02096.html>

[2] [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v4 2/5] x86: Allow physical address bits to be 
set <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2016-07/msg01950.html>



BR

Shaohe Feng

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