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Subject: [PATCH] virtqueue: flexible layout, size, alignment


Transports can now lay out available/used/descriptor
regions in a flexible way.
This is useful for embedded systems to save memory,
and for large systems to reduce the need for
physically-contigious memory.

This does not add a way to actually program this
in any of the transports, so it's not useful by
itself, a follow-up patch with add a way to
program this for PCI.

Signed-off-by: Michael S. Tsirkin <mst@redhat.com>
---
 virtio-v1.0-wd01-part1-specification.txt | 52 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----
 1 file changed, 46 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/virtio-v1.0-wd01-part1-specification.txt b/virtio-v1.0-wd01-part1-specification.txt
index fcd9fd7..9a40973 100644
--- a/virtio-v1.0-wd01-part1-specification.txt
+++ b/virtio-v1.0-wd01-part1-specification.txt
@@ -223,6 +223,45 @@ transmit and one for receive.  Each queue has a 16-bit queue size
 parameter, which sets the number of entries and implies the total size
 of the queue.
 
+Each virtqueue consists of three parts:
+
+	Descriptor Table
+	Available Ring
+	Used Ring
+
+where each part is physically-contiguous in guest memory,
+and has different alignment requirements.
+
+The Queue Size field controls the total number of bytes
+required for each part of the virtqueue.
+
+The memory aligment and size requirements, in bytes, of each part of the
+virtqueue are summarized in the following table (qsz is the Queue Size field):
+
++------------+---------------------------------+
+| Virtqueue Part    | Alignment | Size         |
++------------+---------------------------------+
++------------+---------------------------------+
+| Descriptor Table  | 16        | 16 * qsz     |
++------------+---------------------------------+
+| Available Ring    | 2         | 6 + 2 * qsz  |
++------------+---------------------------------+
+| Used Ring         | 4         | 6 + 4 * qsz  |
++------------+---------------------------------+
+
+When the driver wants to send a buffer to the device, it fills in
+a slot in the descriptor table (or chains several together), and
+writes the descriptor index into the available ring.  It then
+notifies the device. When the device has finished a buffer, it
+writes the descriptor into the used ring, and sends an interrupt.
+
+
+100.100.4.1. Legacy Interfaces: A Note on Virtqueue Layout
+--------------------------------------
+
+For Legacy Interfaces, several additional
+restrictions are placed on the virtqueue layout:
+
 Each virtqueue occupies two or more physically-contiguous pages
 (usually defined as 4096 bytes, but depending on the transport)
 and consists of three parts:
@@ -241,9 +280,8 @@ required for the virtqueue according to the following formula:
 	          + ALIGN(sizeof(u16)*3 + sizeof(struct vring_used_elem)*qsz);
 	}
 
-This currently wastes some space with padding, but also allows future
-extensions such as the VIRTIO_RING_F_EVENT_IDX extension.  The
-virtqueue layout structure looks like this:
+This wastes some space with padding.
+The legacy virtqueue layout structure therefore looks like this:
 
 	struct vring {
 		// The actual descriptors (16 bytes each)
@@ -814,9 +852,11 @@ This is done as follows, for each virtqueue a device has:
   always a power of 2. This controls how big the virtqueue is
   (see "2.1.4. Virtqueues"). If this field is 0, the virtqueue does not exist.
 
-3. Allocate and zero virtqueue in contiguous physical memory, on
-  a 4096 byte alignment. Write the physical address, divided by
-  4096 to the Queue Address field.[6]
+3. Optionally, select a smaller virtqueue size and write it in the Queue Size
+   field.
+
+3. Allocate and zero Descriptor Table, Available and Used rings for the
+   virtqueue in contiguous physical memory.
 
 4. Optionally, if MSI-X capability is present and enabled on the
   device, select a vector to use to request interrupts triggered
-- 
MST


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