Re: [Xen-devel] Does Dom0 always get interrupts first before they are delivered to other guest domains?

["Liang Yang" <multisyncfe991@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Mats,

Thanks. I still have two more questions:

First, you once gave another excellent explanation about the communication 
between HVM domain and HV (15 Feb 2007 ). Here I quote part of it
"...Since these IO events are synchronous in a real processor, the 
hypervisor will wait for a "return event" before the guest is allowed to 
continue. Qemu-dm runs as a normal user-process in Dom0..."
My question is about those Synchronous I/O events. Why can't we make them 
asynchronous? e.g. whenever I/O are done, we can interrupt HV again and let 
HV resume I/O processing. Is there any specific limiation to force Xen 
hypervisor do I/O in synchronous mode?
Second,  you just mentioned there is big difference between the number of 
HV-to-domain0 events for device model and split driver model. Could you 
elaborate the details about how split driver model can reduce the 
HV-to-domain0 events compared with using qemu device model?
Have a wonderful weekend,

Liang

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Petersson, Mats" <Mats.Petersson@xxxxxxx>
To: "Liang Yang" <multisyncfe991@xxxxxxxxxxx>; 
<xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 10:40 AM
Subject: RE: [Xen-devel] Does Dom0 always get interrupts first before they 
are delivered to other guest domains?



> -----Original Message-----
> From: xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Liang Yang
> Sent: 16 March 2007 17:30
> To: xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [Xen-devel] Does Dom0 always get interrupts first
> before they are delivered to other guest domains?
>
> Hello,
>
> It seems if HVM domains access device using emulation mode
> w/ device model
> in domain0, Xen hypervisor will send the interrupt event to
> domain0 first
> and then the device model in domain0 will send event to HVM domains.
Ok, so let's see if I've understood your question first:
If we do a disk-read (for example), the actual disk-read operation
itself will generate an interrupt, which goes into Xen HV where it's
converted to an event that goes to Dom0, which in turn wakes up the
pending call to read (in this case) that was requesting the disk IO, and
then when the read-call is finished an event is sent to the HVM DomU. Is
this the sequence of events that you're talking about?

If that's what you are talking about, it must be done this way.
> However, if I'm using split driver model and I only run BE driver on
> domain0. Does domain0 still get the interrupt first (assume
> this interupt is
> not owned by the Xen hypervisor ,e.g. local APIC timer) or
> Xen hypervisor
> will send event directly to HVM domain bypass domain0 for
> split driver
> model?
Not in the above type of scenario. The interrupt must go to the
driver-domain (normally Dom0) to indicate that the hardware is ready to
deliver the data. This will wake up the user-mode call that waited for
the data, and then the data can be delivered to the guest domain from
there (which in turn is awakened by the event sent from the driver
domain).

There is no difference in the number of events in these two cases.

There is however a big difference in the number of hypervisor-to-dom0
events that occur: the HVM model will require something in the order of
5 writes to the IDE controller to perform one disk read/write operation.
Each of those will incur one event to wake up qemu-dm, and one event to
wake the domu (which will most likely just to one or two instructions
forward to hit the next write to the IDE controller).

> Another question is: for interrupt delivery, does Xen treat
> para-virtualized
> domain differently from HVM domain considering using device
> model and split
> driver model?
Not in interrupt delivery, no. Except for the fact that HVM domains
obviously have full hardware interfaces for interrupt controllers etc,
which adds a little bit of overhead (because each interrupt needs to be
acknowledged/cancelled on the interrupt controller, for example).

--
Mats
> Thanks a lot,
>
> Liang
>
>
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> Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel



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