Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] xen-blkback: only attach blkback if the required features are met

[Roger Pau Monnà <roger.pau@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 04/04/14 17:01, David Vrabel wrote:
> On 04/04/14 15:41, Roger Pau Monne wrote:
>> Blkback cannot work properly on auto-translated guests if Xen doesn't
>> update the IOMMU when performing grant maps/unmaps, so only attach if
>> the newly introduced XENFEAT_hvm_gntmap_supports_iommu is found.
> 
> Can you explain the problem in more detail and which guest
> configurations are affected?
> 
> This isn't a problem that is specific to blkback, but any backend that
> grant maps and passes the foreign pages to a device so there needs to be
> a generic solution.
> 
> Why can't this be fixed by having the swiotlb bounce foreign pages?

Yes, it could be fixed with that, FreeBSD has been doing it for a long time.

But since nobody has complained about this, and the issue has been there
for a long time, I'm not sure it's worth adding all the bounce buffer
code for what seems to be an unused configuration.

Also, since Linux also supports PV, I would just say that if you want to
use driver domains you are forced to use PV guests (or have a recent Xen
version that properly updates the IOMMU on grant map/unmap).

>> --- a/drivers/block/xen-blkback/blkback.c
>> +++ b/drivers/block/xen-blkback/blkback.c
>> @@ -1381,6 +1381,18 @@ static int __init xen_blkif_init(void)
>>      if (!xen_domain())
>>              return -ENODEV;
>>  
>> +#ifdef CONFIG_X86
>> +    if (xen_feature(XENFEAT_auto_translated_physmap) &&
>> +        !xen_feature(XENFEAT_hvm_gntmap_supports_iommu)) {
>> +            /*
>> +             * blkback cannot work properly on auto-translated guests
>> +             * if grant table mappings don't update the IOMMU entries.
>> +             */
>> +            pr_debug(DRV_PFX "Disabling blkback because Xen is missing 
>> feature XENFEAT_hvm_gntmap_supports_iommu\n");
>> +            return -ENODEV;
>> +    }
>> +#endif /* CONFIG_X86 */
> 
> Why CONFIG_X86?

ARM has a bounce buffer for foreign pages, so this is not needed.

> 
> David
> 


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