Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v3] deprecate -mem-path fallback to anonymous RAM

[Philippe Mathieu-Daudé]

On 6/26/19 9:42 AM, Igor Mammedov wrote:
> Fallback might affect guest or worse whole host performance
> or functionality if backing file were used to share guest RAM
> with another process.
> 
> Patch deprecates fallback so that we could remove it in future
> and ensure that QEMU will provide expected behavior and fail if
> it can't use user provided backing file.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Igor Mammedov <address@hidden>
> Reviewed-by: Daniel P. Berrangé <address@hidden>
> Reviewed-by: Markus Armbruster <address@hidden>

Reviewed-by: Philippe Mathieu-Daudé <address@hidden>

> ---
> v2:
>  * improve text language
>     (Markus Armbruster <address@hidden>)
> v3:
>  * drop confusing 'or QEMU will fail to start' in error message
>  * fix up grammar error
>      (Markus Armbruster <address@hidden>)
> 
>  numa.c               | 6 ++++--
>  qemu-deprecated.texi | 9 +++++++++
>  2 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/numa.c b/numa.c
> index 91a29138a2..1994ab0655 100644
> --- a/numa.c
> +++ b/numa.c
> @@ -494,8 +494,10 @@ static void allocate_system_memory_nonnuma(MemoryRegion 
> *mr, Object *owner,
>              if (mem_prealloc) {
>                  exit(1);
>              }
> -            error_report("falling back to regular RAM allocation.");
> -
> +            warn_report("falling back to regular RAM allocation");
> +            error_printf("This is deprecated. Make sure that -mem-path "
> +                         " specified path has sufficient resources to 
> allocate"
> +                         " -m specified RAM amount");
>              /* Legacy behavior: if allocation failed, fall back to
>               * regular RAM allocation.
>               */
> diff --git a/qemu-deprecated.texi b/qemu-deprecated.texi
> index 2fe9b72121..9cba82d5ec 100644
> --- a/qemu-deprecated.texi
> +++ b/qemu-deprecated.texi
> @@ -112,6 +112,15 @@ QEMU using implicit generic or board specific splitting 
> rule.
>  Use @option{memdev} with @var{memory-backend-ram} backend or @option{mem} (if
>  it's supported by used machine type) to define mapping explictly instead.
>  
> +@subsection -mem-path fallback to RAM (since 4.1)
> +Currently if guest RAM allocation from file pointed by @option{mem-path}
> +fails, QEMU falls back to allocating from RAM, which might result
> +in unpredictable behavior since the backing file specified by the user
> +is ignored. In the future, users will be responsible for making sure
> +the backing storage specified with @option{-mem-path} can actually provide
> +the guest RAM configured with @option{-m} and QEMU will fail to start up if
> +RAM allocation is unsuccessful.
> +
>  @section QEMU Machine Protocol (QMP) commands
>  
>  @subsection block-dirty-bitmap-add "autoload" parameter (since 2.12.0)
>