Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 18/19] target-ppc: Enhance the CPU node labels for the guest device tree for pseries.

[Prerna Saxena]

Hi Andreas,
Thanks for the response.

On 07/08/2013 10:15 PM, Andreas Färber wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Am 08.07.2013 17:49, schrieb Prerna Saxena:
>> On 07/08/2013 02:32 PM, Andreas Färber wrote:
>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>> Hash: SHA1
>>>
>>> Am 08.07.2013 03:09, schrieb David Gibson:
>>>> On Sat, Jul 06, 2013 at 11:54:15PM +1000, Alexey Kardashevskiy
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> @@ -1342,6 +1346,13 @@ static void
>>>>> ppc_spapr_init(QEMUMachineInitArgs *args) 
>>>>> register_savevm_live(NULL, "spapr/htab", -1, 1, 
>>>>> &savevm_htab_handlers, spapr);
>>>>>
>>>>> +    /* Ensure that cpu_model is correctly reflected for a KVM
>>>>> guest */ +    if (kvm_enabled() && !strcmp(cpu_model, "host")) { 
>>>>> +        asm ("mfpvr %0" +            : "=r"(pvr)); +
>>>>> cpu_model = ppc_cpu_alias_by_pvr(pvr);
>>>>
>>>> This needs to be protected by an ifdef CONFIG_KVM or similar.  If
>>>> the compiler optimization level is turned down, so that it doesn't 
>>>> recognize that the kvm_enabled() is always false, then this could 
>>>> attempt to compile the ppc asm instructions on an x86 (or
>>>> whatever) host.
>>>
>>> This hunk can be completely replaced by QOM mechanisms - just didn't
>>> get to replying yet...
>>
>> Sorry I already sent out a v2, and only then saw your message. Could you
>> pls explain how I could use QOM to replace this code block ?
> 
> Well, in short the thing is it has not much to do with KVM. The
> KVM-specific host-powerpc64-cpu type is derived from the one you're
> looking for and thus you can use object_class_get_parent() to obtain the
> parent type and look at its name - stripping "-" TYPE_POWERPC_CPU from
> it should be much more efficient but will give you the detailed name
> including revision. I was planning to propose an alternative patch for that.

This is what my patch does :-)

+const char *ppc_cpu_alias_by_pvr(uint32_t pvr)
+{
+    int i;
+    const char *cpu_alias;
+    char *offset, *model;
+
+    cpu_alias  = object_class_get_name(OBJECT_CLASS
+                            (ppc_cpu_class_by_pvr(pvr)));
+ ....[snip]

> 
> Replacing a concrete model name with its simpler alias is a secondary
> issue (separate patch) that is not specific to KVM or -cpu host. Compare
> -cpu POWER8_v1.0 printing .../address@hidden/... presumably.
> 

Agree that this is not specific to KVM. That is the reason I have set it
in a separate function, which can be called otherwise as well.

Just to clarify your response, you want the function I coded to be split
into 2 different pieces, to cater to the two specific requirements you
mention ? That can be done, but not sure if it is too much code bloat.

> Further, Alex has already applied a patch of his working around the
> alias table being a rather archaic construct, not intended for frequent
> use. Instead of adding even more functions that iterate it, we should
> turn it into a hashtable for efficient lookup.
> 

Can you / Alexander Graf point me to the fix ? I can rework my patch to
consume it ?

> (Note that the cpu_model_str field may contain more than just the model
> name, it is otherwise unused in softmmu and I was therefore preparing a
> patch to ban its use to linux-user solely, so the type name seems the
> most reliable indicator we have and as a bonus no PVR needed for it.)
> 

Hmm, maybe obsoleting PVR check is not such a great idea.
I'm not sure if my earlier email clearly outlined the use-case this
patch was attempting to fix. Here is a detailed explanation :

We will still need PVR based lookups for cases such as the one I have
described. As an illustration, consider running in a KVM environment
where QEMU hasnt been started with a specific CPU type via "-CPU
PPC_MODEL". In this case, we will be required to do a PVR_based lookup
only -- to make sure the guest gets initialized with the same CPU as
host. The notion of _same_cpu_model_ can only be built over a PVR check.

Regards,
-- 
Prerna Saxena

Linux Technology Centre,
IBM Systems and Technology Lab,
Bangalore, India