[libvirt] [PATCH v2 0/4] New mdev type handling for aggregated resources

[Zhenyu Wang]

On 2018.07.24 11:44:40 -0600, Alex Williamson wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 10:19:24 +0800
> Zhenyu Wang <zhenyuw at linux.intel.com> wrote:
> 
> > Current mdev device create interface depends on fixed mdev type, which get uuid
> > from user to create instance of mdev device. If user wants to use customized
> > number of resource for mdev device, then only can create new mdev type for that
> > which may not be flexible. This requirement comes not only from to be able to
> > allocate flexible resources for KVMGT, but also from Intel scalable IO
> > virtualization which would use vfio/mdev to be able to allocate arbitrary
> > resources on mdev instance. More info on [1] [2] [3].
> > 
> > To allow to create user defined resources for mdev, it trys to extend mdev
> > create interface by adding new "instances=xxx" parameter following uuid, for
> > target mdev type if aggregation is supported, it can create new mdev device
> > which contains resources combined by number of instances, e.g
> > 
> >     echo "<uuid>,instances=10" > create
> > 
> > VM manager e.g libvirt can check mdev type with "aggregation" attribute which
> > can support this setting. If no "aggregation" attribute found for mdev type,
> > previous behavior is still kept for one instance allocation. And new sysfs
> > attribute "instances" is created for each mdev device to show allocated number.
> > 
> > This trys to create new KVMGT type with minimal vGPU resources which can be
> > combined with "instances=x" setting to allocate for user wanted resources.
> 
> "instances" makes me think this is arg helps to create multiple mdev
> instances rather than consuming multiple instances for a single mdev.
> You're already exposing the "aggregation" attribute, so doesn't
> "aggregate" perhaps make more sense as the create option?  We're asking
> the driver to aggregate $NUM instances into a single mdev.  The mdev
> attribute should then perhaps also be "aggregated_instances".

yeah that seems better.

> 
> The next user question for the interface might be what aspect of the
> device gets multiplied by this aggregation?  In i915 I see you're
> multiplying the memory sizes by the instance, but clearly the
> resolution doesn't change.  I assume this is sort of like mdev types
> themselves, ie. some degree of what a type means is buried in the
> implementation and some degree of what some number of those types
> aggregated together means is impossible to describe generically.
>

yeah, the purpose was to increase memory resource only, but due to current
free formatted 'description', can't have a meaningful expression for that,
and not sure if libvirt likes to understand vendor specific behavior e.g
for intel vGPU?

> We're also going to need to add aggregation to the checklist for device
> compatibility for migration, for example 1) is it the same mdev_type,
> 1a) are the aggregation counts the same (new), 2) is the host driver
> compatible (TBD).
>

Right, will check with Zhi on that.

> The count handling in create_store(), particularly MDEV_CREATE_OPT_LEN
> looks a little suspicious.  I think we should just be validating that
> the string before the ',' or the entire string if there is no comma is
> UUID length.  Pass only that to uuid_le_to_bin().  We can then strncmp
> as you have for "instances=" (or "aggregate=") but then let's be sure
> to end the string we pass to kstrtouint(), ie. assume there could be
> further args.

Original purpose was to limit the length of string to accept, but can take
this way without issue I think.

> 
> Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-bus-vfio-mdev also needs to be updated
> with this series.

Ok.

Thanks

> 
> I'm curious what libvirt folks and Kirti think of this, it looks like
> it has a nice degree of backwards compatibility, both in the sysfs
> interface and the vendor driver interface.  Thanks,
> 
> Alex

-- 
Open Source Technology Center, Intel ltd.

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