Re: [PATCH 2/5] Introduce VIRTIO_F_ADMIN_VQ_INDIRECT_DESC/VIRTIO_F_ADMIN_VQ_IN_ORDER

[Jason Wang <jasowang@redhat.com>]

On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 4:09 PM Parav Pandit <parav@nvidia.com> wrote:
>
>
> > From: Jason Wang <jasowang@redhat.com>
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2022 12:24 PM
> >
> > > >
> > > > 1) the vendor and transport that doesn't want to use admin virtqueue
> > > It is not the choice of vendor to use admin virtqueue or not. It is the spec
> > definition.
> >
> > We are discussing the proposal which hasn't been a part of the spec right now.
> > It doesn't mean we can't do better.
> Sure. Itâs the proposal we are discussing, but I fail to understand why a vendor doesnât want to use a admin queue due to which it needs to be detached.

What do you mean by "detached"?

>
> > >
> > > Why a transport doesnât want to use admin queue?
> >
> > The answer is simple and straightforward, each transport had already had its
> > transport specific way to configure the device.
> Each transport uses transport agnostic way to communicate the requests and response to the device by means of virtqueue descriptors.
>
> And that is done through virtqueue.
>
> A descriptor in a virtqueue represents wide range of things.
> 1. Sometime sending packet,
> 2. sometimes configuring vlan,
> 3. sometime configuring adding mac to table.
> 4. sometime adding crypto session
> 5. and now sometime managing a managed VF or SF device
>
> Item #5 is no different than #1 to #4.
> Managed device configuration != "generic configure the device".

Well, I think then you need to explain this well in the patch.

>
> >
> > > I donât follow why virtio fs device wants to use something other than request
> > queue to transport virtio_fs_req.
> >
> > See my previous reply, I didn't mean we need to change any device specific
> > operation like virtio_fs_req.
> >
> You imply that virtio_fs_req must be carried on the request queue, but some other request like to use other than virtqueue even though its explained several times that why virtqueue is used.
> Doesn't make sense at all.

So a virtqueue is needed only when DMA is required. That is the case
for virtio_fs_req.

For other cases that DMA is not a must, it could or not be a queue interface.

>
> > What I meant is, let's take MSI as an example
> >
> > 1) PCI has MSI table
> > 2) MMIO doesn't support MSI
> >
> > It looks to me you want to mandate admin virtqueue to MMIO in order to
> > configure MSI?
> >
> If you want to attribute it as "mandate" than yes, it is no different than,
> virtio_fs_req is mandated on request vq.
> virtio_crypto_op_ctrl_req ia mandated on control vq.
>
> What prevents both above examples to used AQ in generic manner?

Nothing, but for simple features like MSI I don't think we can exclude
the possibility of using dedicated registers. For a simple setup like
a guest that is using an MMIO device, using new virtqueue just for MSI
seems an odd burden.

>
> > >
> > > > 2) a more simple interface for L1
> > > I donât see virtqueue as complicated object which exists for 10+ years now
> > and in use by 18 devices in L1 and also in L2.
> > > And it is something to be used for multiple commands.
> >
> > So again, there's misunderstanding. It's all about the "control plane"
> > but not "dataplane". A simple example is to configure the vq address.
> >
> > 1) For PCI it was done via common_cfg structure
> > 2) For MMIO it was done via dedicated registers
> > 3) For CCW, it was done via dedicated commands
>
> We discussed already and you ignored the scale, on-die and other comments.

Looks not, it's the IMS discussion that confuses the thread probably.

> And low level self-device configuration is compared with managing device configuration.
> This comparison simply isn't right.
>
> data plane => vq
> control plane => cq + transport specific cfg
> mgmt plane => aq (this proposal)
>
> mgmt plane != device on vq configuration.

To clarify, we need to define what exactly did management mean? E.g is
IMS considered to be mgmt or control?

> Device on vq configuration doesn't block with other device VQ configuration.
>
> >
> > And we know we need dedicated commands for the admin virtqueue.
> Not sure I follow you. AQ carries admin queue commands like any other queues.
>
> > Since we
> > had a transport specific interface, guest drivers can still configure the virtqueue
> > address in L1 via the transport specific interface. So the hypervisor can hide the
> > admin virtqueue. Let's say we introduce a new feature X for the admin
> > virtqueue only. How can a guest driver to use that feature?
> As the patch-1, and patch-4 clearly shows the purpose of the AQ, AQ is of the virtio device located in the HV is not for the consumption in the guest driver.
>
> > Do we want to hide
> > or assign the admin virtqueue to L1?
> A virtio device in guest may have its own admin queue. But again, until now there is no concrete example discussed that demands an admin queue in the guest driver.
> IMS vector enable/disable was the closest one we discussed and we agreed that AQ cannot be used for that.

Ok.

>
> >
> > I understand that for things like provisioning which might not be needed for L1,
> > but how about others?
> Others?

Well, I'd say if you limit the admin virtuqueue for provisioning, it
should be fine.

>
> > > >
> > > Shahaf and I already explained in this thread that this capability doesnât scale
> > to your question about "I do not understand scale ..".
> > > So a device that wants to do above can simply do this with AQ with single VQ
> > depth and still achieve the simplicity.
> >
> > I thought it was for SF but not SR-IOV.
> Ah, that was the misunderstanding you had. It applies to SF and SR-IOV both.
>
> >
> > I think we all know SR-IOV doesn't scale in many ways and if I understand this
> > series correctly, the main goal is not to address the scalability issues.
> You are mixing many things here. Do not mix SR-IOV VF scaling with PF resource scaling.
> Please keep it focused.
>
> The goal as constantly repeated, is to have a interface between driver and device to carry multiple commands in scalable way without consuming on-chip resources.
>
> >
> > It's good to consider the scalability but there could be cases that don't need to
> > be scaled.
> Sure, in that case AQ of single entry is just fine.
>
> >
> > >
> > > Michael also responded that device configuration will not end at msix
> > configuration.
> > > So adding more and more tiny capabilities for each configuration doesn't
> > scale either.
> > >
> You need to ack above point otherwise we will keep discussing this even 2 weeks from now. :)

I think I've acknowledged in another thread about the idea of using
admin virtqueue.

Thanks

>
> > > > >
> > > > > Or you mean, a guest driver of VF or SF is configuring its IMS to
> > > > > later
> > > > consume for the VQ?
> > > > > If its this, than I explained that admin queue is not the vehicle
> > > > > to do so, and
> > > > we discussed the other structure yday.
> > > >
> > > > Yes, I guess that's the nesting case I mentioned above.
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > > 1) transport independent way: e.g admin virtqueue (which will be
> > > > > > eventually became another transport)
> > > > > >
> > > > > IMS by guest driver cannot be configured by AQ.
> > > >
> > > > Yes, that's one point.
> > > >
> > > Ok. cool. We sync here too. :)
> >
> > So I guess you know what I meant for the L1 interface?
> With your last question, let me double check my understanding. :)
>
> My understanding of L1 interface is virtio device in hypervisor. Is that right?
>