Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 7/7] numa: Allow empty nodes

[Nishanth Aravamudan]

On 16.06.2014 [17:11:40 -0300], Eduardo Habkost wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 11:49:46AM -0700, Nishanth Aravamudan wrote:
> > On 16.06.2014 [13:15:00 -0300], Eduardo Habkost wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 05:53:53PM +1000, Alexey Kardashevskiy wrote:
> > > > Currently NUMA nodes must go consequently and QEMU ignores nodes
> > > > with @nodeid bigger than the number of NUMA nodes in the command line.
> > > 
> > > Why would somebody need a NUMA node with nodeid bigger than the number
> > > of NUMA nodes? NUMA node IDs must be in the [0, numa_nodes-1] range.
> > 
> > That is not how the code works currently.
> > 
> > vl.c::numa_add()
> > ...
> >         if (get_param_value(option, 128, "nodeid", optarg) == 0) {
> >             nodenr = nb_numa_nodes;
> >         } else {
> >             if (parse_uint_full(option, &nodenr, 10) < 0) {
> >                 fprintf(stderr, "qemu: Invalid NUMA nodeid: %s\n", option);
> >                 exit(1);
> >             }
> >         }
> > ...
> >         if (get_param_value(option, 128, "mem", optarg) == 0) {
> >             node_mem[nodenr] = 0;
> >         } else {
> >             int64_t sval;
> >             sval = strtosz(option, &endptr);
> >             if (sval < 0 || *endptr) {
> >                 fprintf(stderr, "qemu: invalid numa mem size: %s\n", 
> > optarg);
> >                 exit(1);
> >             }
> >             node_mem[nodenr] = sval;
> >         }
> > ...
> >     nb_numa_nodes++;
> > ...
> > 
> > So if a user passes nodeid= to the NUMA node definition, that entry in
> > node_mem is set to the appropriate value, but nb_numa_nodes, which is
> > used to bound the iteration of that array is not bumped appropriately.
> > So we end up looking at arbitrary indices in the node_mem array, which
> > are often 0.

<snip, replying to this part in your follow-up>
 
> > Note also that means that we can't generically differentiate here
> > between a user-defined memoryless node and one that happens to be 0
> > because the particular nodeid was not specified on the command-line.
> 
> That's because all nodeids must be specified in the command-line.
> Accepting omitted nodes is a bug which should be fixed.

Fair enough, but that's certainly not enforced. In fact, the way the
code is written right now (in hw/ppc/spapr.c and hw/i386/pc.c, e.g) it
seems like hte architecture code assumes nodeids are sequential (0 to
nb_numa_nodes), but the generic code puts values in node_mem based upon
the nodeid specified on the command-line. That's the bug Alexey's 7/7
patch is attempting to fix, I think.

> > Alexey, how do you differentiate between these two cases after your
> > patches? In patch 3, I see you check (and skip in the loop) explicitly
> > if !node_mem[nodeid], but I'm not sure how that check can differentiate
> > between the statically 0 (from main's intialization loop) and when a
> > user says a node's memory is 0. Probably something obvious I'm missing
> > (it is Monday after all)...
> > 
> > > > This prevents us from creating memory-less nodes which is possible
> > > > situation in POWERPC under pHyp or Sapphire.
> > > 
> > > Why? If I recall correctly, nodes without any CPUs or any memory are
> > > already allowed.
> > 
> > They are allowed, but it seems like the code throughout qemu (where it's
> > relevant) assumes that NUMA nodes are sequential and continuous, but
> > that's not required (nor is it enforced on the command-line).
> 
> It is not being enforced, but you will get weird bugs if you don't do
> it. What I suggest is that we start enforcing it instead of magically
> crating new nodes when a wrong (too high) ID is provided.
> 
> > 
> > > How exactly would this patch help you? How do you expect the
> > > command-line to look like for your use case?
> > 
> > Alexey has replied with that, it looks like.
> 
> Where? I don't see a reply.
> 
> > 
> > > > This makes nb_numa_nodes a total number of nodes or the biggest node
> > > > number + 1 whichever is greater.
> > > > 
> > > > Signed-off-by: Alexey Kardashevskiy <address@hidden>
> > > > ---
> > > >  vl.c | 2 +-
> > > >  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> > > > 
> > > > diff --git a/vl.c b/vl.c
> > > > index ac0e3d7..f1b75cb 100644
> > > > --- a/vl.c
> > > > +++ b/vl.c
> > > > @@ -1356,7 +1356,7 @@ static void numa_add(const char *optarg)
> > > >          if (get_param_value(option, 128, "cpus", optarg) != 0) {
> > > >              numa_node_parse_cpus(nodenr, option);
> > > >          }
> > > > -        nb_numa_nodes++;
> > > > +        nb_numa_nodes = MAX(nb_numa_nodes + 1, nodenr + 1);
> > > 
> > > I would instead suggest that if any node in the [0, max_node_id] range
> > > is not present on the command-line, QEMU should instead reject the
> > > command-line.
> > 
> > We already check two things:
> > 
> > Too many nodes (meaning we've filled the array):
> >         if (nb_numa_nodes >= MAX_NODES) {
> >             fprintf(stderr, "qemu: too many NUMA nodes\n");
> >             exit(1);
> >         }
> > 
> > Node ID itself is out of range (due to the use of an array):
> >         if (nodenr >= MAX_NODES) {
> >             fprintf(stderr, "qemu: invalid NUMA nodeid: %llu\n", nodenr);
> >             exit(1);
> >         }
> > 
> > But that doesn't prevent one from having *sparse* NUMA node IDs. And, as
> > far as I can tell, this is allowed by the spec, but isn't properly
> > supported by qemu.
> 
> Wait, is the node ID visible to the guest at all? I believe it is a
> QEMU-internal thing, just to allow the NUMA nodes to be ordered in the
> command-line. I would even claim that the parameter is useless and
> shouldn't have been introduced in the first place.

nodeid's show up in the topology to Linux, at least on ppc.

Thanks,
Nish