Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] pc: Clean up PIC-to-APIC IRQ path

[Blue Swirl]

On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 2:37 PM, Anthony Liguori <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 09/04/2011 08:57 AM, Anthony Liguori wrote:
>>
>> On 09/04/2011 08:49 AM, Jan Kiszka wrote:
>>>
>>> On 2011-09-04 15:41, Anthony Liguori wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 09/04/2011 08:36 AM, Jan Kiszka wrote:
>>>> Having some sort of global interrupt routing table is just going to add
>>>> a layer of complexity for very little obvious gain.
>>>
>>> It's not yet decided how the problem is solved. A global interrupt
>>> matrix is just one proposal, another option is to extend the pin model
>>> in a way that supports routing change notifiers and backward polling.
>>
>> If that's all you need, then you really just want notification on socket
>> changes. Backwards polling can be achieved by just adding state to the
>> Pin (which I full heartedly support).
>>
>> If that's all you're proposing, than I'm entirely happy with it :-)
>
> It's not that simple.
>
> Routing paths can change because of device changes, not just socket changes.

Yes, that's why callbacks are needed to let the device inform global matrix.

> I think you would need an interface for irq routing.  Something like:
>
> struct IrqRouter {
>    Interface parent;
>
>    void (*foreach_output)(IrqRouter *obj,
>                           void (*fn)(const char *out, void *opaque),
>                           void *opaque);
>
>    void (*foreach_input)(IrqRouter *obj,
>                          void (*fn)(const char *in, void *opaque),
>                          void *opaque);

Are the above a way for a parent to tell this device that its inputs
are changed?

>    const char *(*get_mapping)(IrqRouter *obj, const char *in);

This would be useful for the matrix too, the matrix would use this to
query for initial routing, maybe also for later changes if the change
callback didn't tell the mapping directly.

> };
>
> You could then implement this interface in I440FX or any other controller
> where we want to be able to support device passthrough.
>
> Representing endpoints as strings means that you can correlate inputs to
> outputs throughout the chain provided that you understand how inputs/outputs
> relate to plugs/sockets.

The string format assumes that there is a reliable way to convert Pin
to string and vice versa. Why can't they be array of pointers to Pins?

String representation (e.g. "/i440fx/address@hidden,0/address@hidden:2")
could be useful for debugging and 'info qtree' ('info irqtree'?)
though.

> I think this has the property of letting you write reasonably generic code
> to discover routing while only having to add complexity to the bare minimum
> set of devices to enable device passthrough.
>
> It's basically what I suggested for PCI INTx mapping but a little more
> generic as an interface so that it can extend to other types of devices.
>
> Regards,
>
> Anthony Liguori
>
>> I'm happy with that because all of the route detection logic can live
>> outside of the devices which at least contains the complexity.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Anthony Liguori
>
>