Hi,
Few months ago, Michael reported a problem about migrating VMs relying
on vhost-user between hosts supporting different backend versions:
- Message-Id: <20161011173526-mutt-send-email-...@kernel.org>
- https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2016-10/msg03026.html
The goal of this thread is to draft a proposal based on the outcomes
of discussions with contributors of the different parties (DPDK/OVS
/libvirt/...).
Problem statement:
==================
When migrating a VM from one host to another, the interfaces exposed by
QEMU must stay unchanged in order to guarantee a successful migration.
In the case of vhost-user interface, parameters like supported Virtio
feature set, max number of queues, max vring sizes,... must remain
compatible. Indeed, the frontend not being re-initialized, no
renegotiation happens at migration time.
For example, we have a VM that runs on host A, which has its vhost-user
backend advertising VIRTIO_F_RING_INDIRECT_DESC feature. Since the Guest
also support this feature, it is successfully negotiated, and guest
transmit packets using indirect descriptor tables, that the backend
knows to handle.
At some point, the VM is being migrated to host B, which runs an older
version of the backend not supporting this VIRTIO_F_RING_INDIRECT_DESC
feature. The migration would break, because the Guest still have the
VIRTIO_F_RING_INDIRECT_DESC bit sets, and the virtqueue contains some
decriptors pointing to indirect tables, that backend B doesn't know to
handle.
This is just an example about Virtio features compatibility, but other
backend implementation details could cause other failures.
What we need is to be able to query the destination host's backend to
ensure migration is possible. Also, we would need to query this
statically, even before the VM is started, to be sure it could be
migrated elsewhere for any reason.
Solution 1: Libvirt queries DPDK vhost lib: *KO*
================================================
Initial idea was to have the management tool (libvirt) to query DPDK
vhost lib and get key/value pairs and check whether migration is
possible. This solution doesn't work for several reasons:
1. Vhost lib API provide a way for the application to disable features
at runtime (understand, not at build time). So coming back to previous
example, DPDK v16.11 supports indirect descriptor features, but it could
be disabled by OVS. We had a look at whether this API was mandatory, and
it turns out to be, as TSO feature is supported on DPDK but not in OVS.
So we cannot rely on DPDK only.
2. Some parameter may be not only DPDK specific, such as the maximum
number of queues for example.
Solution 2: Libvirt queries OVS for vhost backend key/value pairs: *KO*
=======================================================================
Second idea was for OVS to expose its vhost backend implementation
parameters as key/value pairs, for example in the DB or by a dedicated
tool. For example, you could have this kind of information:
- virtio-features: 0x12045694
- max-rx-queues: 1024
- max-rx-ring-size: 512
Doing this, Libvirt has the information to take decision whether
migration is possible or not.
The problem is that Libvirt doesn't know (and want) to interpret these
values (should it be equal/lower/greater/...?), and each time a new
key is introduced in OVS, Libvirt will have to be updated to handle it,
adding an unwanted synchronization constraint between the projects.
Solution 3: Libvirt queries OVS for vhost backend version string: *OK*
======================================================================
The idea is to have a table of supported versions, associated to
key/value pairs. Libvirt could query the list of supported versions
strings for each hosts, and select the first common one among all hosts.
Then, libvirt would ask OVS to probe the vhost-user interfaces in the
selected version (compatibility mode). For example host A runs OVS-2.7,
and host B OVS-2.6. Host A's OVS-2.7 has an OVS-2.6 compatibility mode
(e.g. with indirect descriptors disabled), which should be selected at
vhost-user interface probe time.
Advantage of doing so is that libvirt does not need any update if new
keys are introduced (i.e. it does not need to know how the new keys have
to be handled), all these checks remain in OVS's vhost-user implementation.
Ideally, we would support per vhost-user interface compatibility mode,
which may have an impact also on DPDK API, as the Virtio feature update
API is global, and not per port.
- Implementation:
-----------------
Goal here is just to illustrate this proposal, I'm sure you will have
good suggestion to improve it.
In OVS vhost-user library, we would introduce a new structure, for
example (neither compiled nor tested):
struct vhostuser_compat {
char *version;
uint64_t virtio_features;
uint32_t max_rx_queue_sz;
uint32_t max_nr_queues;
};
*version* field is the compatibility version string.
It could be something like: "upstream.ovs-dpdk.v2.6"
In case for example Fedora adds some more patches to its
package that would break migration to upstream version, it could have
a dedicated compatibility string: "fc26.ovs-dpdk.v2.6".
In case OVS-v2.7 does not break compatibility with previous OVS-v2.6
version, then no need to create a new compatibility entry, just keep
v2.6 one.
*virtio_features* field is the Virtio features set for a given
compatibility version. When an OVS tag is to be created, it would be
associated to a DPDK version. The Virtio features for these version
would be stored in this field. It would allow to upgrade the DPDK
package for example from v16.07 to v16.11 without breaking migration.
In case the distribution wants to benefit from latests Virtio
features, it would have to create a new entry to ensure migration
won't be broken.
*max_rx_queue_sz*
*max_nr_queues* fields are just here for example, don't think this is
needed today. I just want to illustrate that we have to anticipate
other parameters than the Virtio feature set, even if not necessary
at the moment.
We create a table with different compatibility versions in OVS
vhost-user lib:
static struct vhostuser_compat vu_compat[] = {
{
.version = "upstream.ovs-dpdk.v2.7",
.virtio_features = 0x12045694,
.max_rx_queue_sz = 512,
},
{
.version = "upstream.ovs-dpdk.v2.6",
.virtio_features = 0x10045694,
.max_rx_queue_sz = 1024,
},
}
At some time during installation, or system init, the table would be
parsed, and compatibility version strings would be stored into the OVS
database, or a new tool would be created to list these strings.
Before launching the VM, libvirt will query the version strings for
each hosts using for example the JSON RPC API of OVS (maybe not the best
solution, looking forward for your comments on this). Libvirt would then
select the first common supported version, and insert this string into
the vhost-user interfaces parameters in the OVS DBs of each host.
When the vhost-user connection is initiated, OVS would know in which
compatibility mode to init the interface, for example by restricting
the support Virtio features of the interface.
Do you think this is reasonable? Or maybe you have alternative ideas
that would be best fit to ensure successful migration?
Cheers,
Maxime
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