Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v7 4/5] virtio-balloon: VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_FREE_PAGE_HINT

[Peter Xu]

On Thu, Jun 07, 2018 at 08:01:42PM +0800, Wei Wang wrote:
> On 06/07/2018 02:58 PM, Peter Xu wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 07, 2018 at 01:29:22PM +0800, Wei Wang wrote:
> > > > > > [...]
> > > > > > > +static const VMStateDescription 
> > > > > > > vmstate_virtio_balloon_free_page_report = {
> > > > > > > +    .name = "virtio-balloon-device/free-page-report",
> > > > > > > +    .version_id = 1,
> > > > > > > +    .minimum_version_id = 1,
> > > > > > > +    .needed = virtio_balloon_free_page_support,
> > > > > > > +    .fields = (VMStateField[]) {
> > > > > > > +        VMSTATE_UINT32(free_page_report_cmd_id, VirtIOBalloon),
> > > > > > > +        VMSTATE_UINT32(poison_val, VirtIOBalloon),
> > > > > > (could we move all the poison-related lines into another patch or
> > > > > >     postpone?  after all we don't support it yet, do we?)
> > > > > > 
> > > > >    We don't support migrating poison value, but guest maybe use it, 
> > > > > so we are
> > > > > actually disabling this feature in that case. Probably good to leave 
> > > > > the
> > > > > code together to handle that case.
> > > > Could we just avoid declaring that feature bit in emulation code
> > > > completely?  I mean, we support VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_FREE_PAGE_HINT first
> > > > as the first step (as you mentioned in commit message, the POISON is a
> > > > TODO).  Then when you really want to completely support the POISON
> > > > bit, you can put all that into a separate patch.  Would that work?
> > > > 
> > > Not really. The F_PAGE_POISON isn't a feature configured via QEMU cmd line
> > > like F_FREE_PAGE_HINT. We always set F_PAGE_POISON if F_FREE_PAGE_HINT is
> > > enabled. It is used to detect if the guest is using page poison.
> > Ok I think I kind of understand.  But it seems strange to me to have
> > this as a feature bit.  I thought it suites more to be a config field
> > so that guest could setup.  Like, we can have 1 byte to setup "whether
> > PAGE_POISON is used in the guest", another 1 byte to setup "what is
> > the PAGE_POISON value if it's enabled".
> 
> This is also suggested by Michael, which sounds good to me. Using config is
> doable, but that doesn't show advantages over using feature bits.
> 
> 
> 
> > 
> > Asked since I see this in virtio spec (v1.0, though I guess it won't
> > change) in chapter "2.2.1 Driver Requirements: Feature Bits":
> > 
> > "The driver MUST NOT accept a feature which the device did not offer"
> > 
> > Then I'm curious what would happen if:
> > 
> > - a emulator (not QEMU) only offered F_FREE_PAGE_HINT, not F_POISON
> > - a guest that enabled PAGE_POISON
> > 
> > Then how the driver could tell the host that PAGE_POISON is enabled
> > considering that guest should never set that feature bit if the
> > emulation code didn't provide it?
> > 
> 
> All the emulator implementations need to follow the virtio spec. We will
> finally have this feature written to the virtio-balloon device section, and
> state that the F_PAGE_POISON needs to be set on the device when
> F_FREE_PAGE_HINT is set on the device.

Okay.  Still I would think a single feature cleaner here since they
are actually tightly bound together, e.g., normally AFAIU this only
happens when we introduce FEATURE1, after a while we introduced
FEATURE2, then we need to have two features there since there are
emulators that are already running only with FEATURE1.

AFAICT the thing behind is that your kernel patches are split (one for
FEATURE1, one for FEATURE2), however when you only have FEATURE1 it's
actually broken (if without the POISON support, PAGE_HINT feature
might be broken).  So it would be nicer if the kernel patches are
squashed so that no commit would broke any guest.  And, if they are
squashed then IMHO we don't need two feature bits at all. ;)

But anyway, I understand it now.  Thanks,

-- 
Peter Xu