Re: [Xen-devel] [RFC PATCH 16/30] q35/xen: Add Xen platform device support for Q35

[Eduardo Habkost <ehabkost@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 06:56:37AM +1000, Alexey G wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Mar 2018 16:44:06 -0300
> Eduardo Habkost <ehabkost@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> >On Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 04:34:01AM +1000, Alexey Gerasimenko wrote:
> >> Current Xen/QEMU method to control Xen Platform device on i440 is a
> >> bit odd -- enabling/disabling Xen platform device actually modifies
> >> the QEMU emulated machine type, namely xenfv <--> pc.
> >> 
> >> In order to avoid multiplying machine types, use a new way to
> >> control Xen Platform device for QEMU -- "xen-platform-dev" machine
> >> property (bool). To maintain backward compatibility with existing
> >> Xen/QEMU setups, this is only applicable to q35 machine currently.
> >> i440 emulation still uses the old method (i.e. xenfv/pc machine
> >> selection) to control Xen Platform device, this may be changed later
> >> to xen-platform-dev property as well.
> >> 
> >> This way we can use a single machine type (q35) and change just
> >> xen-platform-dev value to on/off to control Xen platform device.
> >> 
> >> Signed-off-by: Alexey Gerasimenko <x1917x@xxxxxxxxx>
> >> ---  
> >[...]
> >> diff --git a/qemu-options.hx b/qemu-options.hx
> >> index 6585058c6c..cee0b92028 100644
> >> --- a/qemu-options.hx
> >> +++ b/qemu-options.hx
> >> @@ -38,6 +38,7 @@ DEF("machine", HAS_ARG, QEMU_OPTION_machine, \
> >>      "                dump-guest-core=on|off include guest memory in
> >> a core dump (default=on)\n" "                mem-merge=on|off
> >> controls memory merge support (default: on)\n" "
> >> igd-passthru=on|off controls IGD GFX passthrough support
> >> (default=off)\n"
> >> +    "                xen-platform-dev=on|off controls Xen Platform
> >> device (default=off)\n" "                aes-key-wrap=on|off
> >> controls support for AES key wrapping (default=on)\n"
> >> "                dea-key-wrap=on|off controls support for DEA key
> >> wrapping (default=on)\n" "                suppress-vmdesc=on|off
> >> disables self-describing migration (default=off)\n"  
> >
> >What are the obstacles preventing "-device xen-platform" from
> >working?  It would be better than adding a new boolean option to
> >-machine.
> 
> I guess the initial assumption was that changing the
> xen_platform_device value in Xen's options may cause some additional
> changes in platform configuration besides adding (or not) the Xen
> Platform device, hence a completely different machine type was chosen
> (xenfv).
> 
> At the moment pc,accel=xen/xenfv selection mostly governs
> only the Xen Platform device presence. Also setting max_cpus to
> HVM_MAX_VCPUS depends on it, but this doesn't applicable to a
> 'pc,accel=xen' machine for some reason.
> 
> If applying HVM_MAX_VCPUS to max_cpus is really necessary I think it's
> better to set it unconditionally for all 'accel=xen' HVM machine
> types inside xen_enabled() block. Right now it's missing for
> pc,accel=xen and q35,accel=xen.

If you are talking about MachineClass::max_cpus, note that it is
returned by query-machines, so it's supposed to be a static
value.  Changing it a runtime would mean the query-machines value
is incorrect.

Is HVM_MAX_CPUS higher or lower than 255?  If it's higher, does
it mean the current value on pc and q35 isn't accurate?


> 
> I'll check if supplying the Xen platform device via the '-device' option
> will be ok for all usage cases.

Is HVM_MAX_CPUS something that needs to be enabled because of
accel=xen or because or the xen-platform device?

If it's just because of accel=xen, we could introduce a
AccelClass::max_cpus() method (we also have KVM-imposed CPU count
limits, currently implemented inside kvm_init()).

-- 
Eduardo

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