Re: [PATCH 0/3] virtio-net: graceful drop of vhost for TAP

[Michael S. Tsirkin]

On Wed, Feb 10, 2021 at 02:19:59PM +0800, Jason Wang wrote:
> 
> On 2021/2/9 下午11:04, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> > On Tue, Feb 09, 2021 at 02:51:05PM +0000, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> > > On Tue, Feb 09, 2021 at 09:34:20AM -0500, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Feb 04, 2021 at 10:29:12PM +0200, Yuri Benditovich wrote:
> > > > > This set of patches introduces graceful switch from tap-vhost to
> > > > > tap-no-vhost depending on guest features. Before that the features
> > > > > that vhost does not support were silently cleared in get_features.
> > > > > This creates potential problem of migration from the machine where
> > > > > some of virtio-net features are supported by the vhost kernel to the
> > > > > machine where they are not supported (packed ring as an example).
> > > > I still worry that adding new features will silently disable vhost for 
> > > > people.
> > > > Can we limit the change to when a VM is migrated in?
> > > Some management applications expect bi-directional live migration to
> > > work, so taking specific actions on incoming migration only feels
> > > dangerous.
> > Could you be more specific?
> > 
> > Bi-directional migration is currently broken
> > when migrating new kernel->old kernel.
> > 
> > This seems to be the motivation for this patch, though I wish
> > it was spelled out more explicitly.
> > 
> > People don't complain much, but I'm fine with fixing that
> > with a userspace fallback.
> > 
> > 
> > I'd rather not force the fallback on others though: vhost is generally
> > specified explicitly by user while features are generally set
> > automatically, so this patch will make us override what user specified,
> > not nice.
> > 
> > 
> > > IMHO if the features we're adding cannot be expected to exist in
> > > host kernels in general, then the feature should defualt to off
> > > and require explicit user config to enable.
> > > Downstream distros which can guarantee newer kernels can flip the
> > > default in their custom machine types if they desire.
> > > 
> > > Regards,
> > > Daniel
> > Unfortunately that will basically mean we are stuck with no new features
> > for years. We did what this patch is trying to change for years now, in
> > particular KVM also seems to happily disable CPU features not supported
> > by kernel so I wonder why we can't keep doing it, with tweaks for some
> > corner cases.
> 
> 
> It's probably not the corner case.
> 
> So my understanding is when a feature is turned on via command line,


Most people do not play with these flags on command line, the
main path to turn features on if when they default to on.

> it
> should not be cleared silently otherwise we may break migration for sure.

Not if we are careful. Setting flags is more dangerous. Clearing is
generally ok.

> E.g when packed=on is specified, we should disable vhost instead of clear it
> from the device.
> 
> Thanks

>From usability POV, consider packed as an example, people only enable it
to get better performance. libvirt says:


                The attribute packed controls if QEMU should try to use packed
        virtqueues. Compared to regular split queues, packed queues consist of
        only a single descriptor ring replacing available and used ring, index
        and descriptor buffer. This can result in better cache utilization and
        performance. If packed virtqueues are actually used depends on the
        feature negotiation between QEMU, vhost backends and guest drivers.
        Possible values are on or off. 

Switching to a completely different backend clearly isn't what user intended.

> 
> > 
> > userspace and kernel not being in 100% sync wrt features is not
> > a corner case though, and switching backends seems like too big
> > a hammer.
> > 
> > > -- 
> > > |: https://berrange.com      -o-    
> > > https://www.flickr.com/photos/dberrange :|
> > > |: https://libvirt.org         -o-            
> > > https://fstop138.berrange.com :|
> > > |: https://entangle-photo.org    -o-    
> > > https://www.instagram.com/dberrange :|
> >