Re: [ovs-dev] [RFC v2] [OVS/NOVA] Vhost-user backends cross-version migration support

[Flavio Leitner]

On Tue, 18 Jul 2017 15:42:08 +0200
Maxime Coquelin  wrote:

> This is an revival from a thread I initiated earlier this year [0], that
> I had to postpone due to other priorities.
> 
> First, I'd like to thanks reviewers of my first proposal, this new
> version tries to address the comments made:
>   1.This is Nova's role and not Libvirt's to query hosts supported
> compatibility modes and to select one, since Nova adds the vhost-user
> ports and has visibility on other hosts. Hence I remove libvirt ML and
> add Openstack one in the recipient list.
>   2. By default, the compatibility version selected is the most recent
> one, except if the admin selects on older compat version.
> 
> The goal of this thread is to draft a solution based on the outcomes
> of discussions with contributors of the different parties (DPDK/OVS
> /Nova/...).
> 
> I'm really interested on feedback from OVS & Nova contributors,
> as my experience with these projects is rather limited.
> 
> 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
> re-negotiation 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. (e.g.
> configurable queues sizes)
> 
> What we need is to be able to query the destination host's backend to
> ensure migration is possible before it is initiated.
> 
> The below proposal has been drafted based on how Qemu manages machine types:
> 
> Proposal
> 
> 
> The idea is to have a table of supported version strings in OVS,
> associated to key/value pairs. Nova or any other management tool could
> query OVS for the list of supported versions strings for each hosts.
> By default, the latest compatibility version will be selected, but the
> admin can select manually an older compatibility mode in order to ensure
> successful migration to an older destination host.
> 
> Then, Nova would add OVS's vhost-user port with adding the selected
> version (compatibility mode) as an extra parameter.
> 
> Before starting the VM migration, Nova will ensure both source and
> destination hosts' vhost-user interfaces run in the same compatibility
> modes, and will prevent it if this is not the case.
> 
> 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 port add
> time to ensure migration will succeed to host B.
> 
> Advantage of doing so is that Nova 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.

It sounds like this covered OVS side, but not the QEMU side. What if
OVS is ahead of qemu?  We might select OVS-3.0 which supports features
that installed qemu doesn't support.


> 
> - 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 entry, just keep
> v2.6 one.
> 
> *virtio_features* 

Re: [ovs-dev] [RFC v2] [OVS/NOVA] Vhost-user backends cross-version migration support

[Eduardo Habkost]

On Wed, Aug 30, 2017 at 11:19:08PM +0300, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 30, 2017 at 04:25:10PM -0300, Eduardo Habkost wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 30, 2017 at 05:23:39PM +0300, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> > > On Wed, Aug 30, 2017 at 10:17:27AM -0300, Eduardo Habkost wrote:
> > > > I'm CCing libvir-list and qemu-devel because I would like to get
> > > > feedback from libvirt and QEMU developers too.
> > > > 
> > > > On Tue, Aug 08, 2017 at 10:49:21PM +0300, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> > > > > On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 03:42:08PM +0200, Maxime Coquelin wrote:
> > > > > > This is an revival from a thread I initiated earlier this year [0], 
> > > > > > that
> > > > > > I had to postpone due to other priorities.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > First, I'd like to thanks reviewers of my first proposal, this new
> > > > > > version tries to address the comments made:
> > > > > >  1.This is Nova's role and not Libvirt's to query hosts supported
> > > > > > compatibility modes and to select one, since Nova adds the 
> > > > > > vhost-user
> > > > > > ports and has visibility on other hosts. Hence I remove libvirt ML 
> > > > > > and
> > > > > > add Openstack one in the recipient list.
> > > > > >  2. By default, the compatibility version selected is the most 
> > > > > > recent
> > > > > > one, except if the admin selects on older compat version.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > The goal of this thread is to draft a solution based on the outcomes
> > > > > > of discussions with contributors of the different parties (DPDK/OVS
> > > > > > /Nova/...).
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > I'm really interested on feedback from OVS & Nova contributors,
> > > > > > as my experience with these projects is rather limited.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > 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
> > > > > > re-negotiation 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. (e.g.
> > > > > > configurable queues sizes)
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > What we need is to be able to query the destination host's backend 
> > > > > > to
> > > > > > ensure migration is possible before it is initiated.
> > > > > 
> > > > > This remided me strongly of the issues around the virtual CPU modeling
> > > > > in KVM, see
> > > > > https://wiki.qemu.org/index.php/Features/CPUModels#Querying_host_capabilities
> > > > > 
> > > > > QEMU recently gained query-cpu-model-expansion to allow capability 
> > > > > queries.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Cc Eduardo accordingly. Eduardo, could you please take a look -
> > > > > how is the problem solved on the KVM/VCPU side? Do the above
> > > > > problem and solution for vhost look similar?
> > > > 
> > > > (Sorry for taking so long to reply)
> > > > 
> > > > CPU configuration in QEMU has the additional problem of features
> > > > depending on host hardware and kernel capabilities (not just QEMU
> > > > software capabilities).  Do you have vhost-user features that
> > > > depend on the host kernel or hardware too, or all of them just
> > > > depend on the vhost-user backend software?
> > > 
> > > vhost-net features depend on host kernel.
> > > 
> > > > If it depends only on software, a solution similar to how
> > > > machine-types work in QEMU sound enough.  If features depend on
> > > > host kernel or host hardware too, it is a bit more complex: it
> > > > means you need an interface to find out if each configurable
> > > > feature/version is really available on the host.
> > > > 
> > > > (In the case of CPU models, we started with an interface that
> > > > reported which CPU 

Re: [ovs-dev] [RFC v2] [OVS/NOVA] Vhost-user backends cross-version migration support

[Michael S. Tsirkin]

On Wed, Aug 30, 2017 at 04:25:10PM -0300, Eduardo Habkost wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 30, 2017 at 05:23:39PM +0300, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 30, 2017 at 10:17:27AM -0300, Eduardo Habkost wrote:
> > > I'm CCing libvir-list and qemu-devel because I would like to get
> > > feedback from libvirt and QEMU developers too.
> > > 
> > > On Tue, Aug 08, 2017 at 10:49:21PM +0300, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 03:42:08PM +0200, Maxime Coquelin wrote:
> > > > > This is an revival from a thread I initiated earlier this year [0], 
> > > > > that
> > > > > I had to postpone due to other priorities.
> > > > > 
> > > > > First, I'd like to thanks reviewers of my first proposal, this new
> > > > > version tries to address the comments made:
> > > > >  1.This is Nova's role and not Libvirt's to query hosts supported
> > > > > compatibility modes and to select one, since Nova adds the vhost-user
> > > > > ports and has visibility on other hosts. Hence I remove libvirt ML and
> > > > > add Openstack one in the recipient list.
> > > > >  2. By default, the compatibility version selected is the most recent
> > > > > one, except if the admin selects on older compat version.
> > > > > 
> > > > > The goal of this thread is to draft a solution based on the outcomes
> > > > > of discussions with contributors of the different parties (DPDK/OVS
> > > > > /Nova/...).
> > > > > 
> > > > > I'm really interested on feedback from OVS & Nova contributors,
> > > > > as my experience with these projects is rather limited.
> > > > > 
> > > > > 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
> > > > > re-negotiation 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. (e.g.
> > > > > configurable queues sizes)
> > > > > 
> > > > > What we need is to be able to query the destination host's backend to
> > > > > ensure migration is possible before it is initiated.
> > > > 
> > > > This remided me strongly of the issues around the virtual CPU modeling
> > > > in KVM, see
> > > > https://wiki.qemu.org/index.php/Features/CPUModels#Querying_host_capabilities
> > > > 
> > > > QEMU recently gained query-cpu-model-expansion to allow capability 
> > > > queries.
> > > > 
> > > > Cc Eduardo accordingly. Eduardo, could you please take a look -
> > > > how is the problem solved on the KVM/VCPU side? Do the above
> > > > problem and solution for vhost look similar?
> > > 
> > > (Sorry for taking so long to reply)
> > > 
> > > CPU configuration in QEMU has the additional problem of features
> > > depending on host hardware and kernel capabilities (not just QEMU
> > > software capabilities).  Do you have vhost-user features that
> > > depend on the host kernel or hardware too, or all of them just
> > > depend on the vhost-user backend software?
> > 
> > vhost-net features depend on host kernel.
> > 
> > > If it depends only on software, a solution similar to how
> > > machine-types work in QEMU sound enough.  If features depend on
> > > host kernel or host hardware too, it is a bit more complex: it
> > > means you need an interface to find out if each configurable
> > > feature/version is really available on the host.
> > > 
> > > (In the case of CPU models, we started with an interface that
> > > reported which CPU models were runnable on the host.  But as
> > > libvirt allows enabling/disabling individual CPU features, the
> > > interface had to be extended to report which CPU features were
> > > available/unavailable on the host.)
> > > 
> > >   * * *
> > > 
> > > Now, there's one thing that seems very different here: the
> > > guest-visible interface is not defined only by 

Re: [ovs-dev] [RFC v2] [OVS/NOVA] Vhost-user backends cross-version migration support

[Eduardo Habkost]

On Wed, Aug 30, 2017 at 05:23:39PM +0300, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 30, 2017 at 10:17:27AM -0300, Eduardo Habkost wrote:
> > I'm CCing libvir-list and qemu-devel because I would like to get
> > feedback from libvirt and QEMU developers too.
> > 
> > On Tue, Aug 08, 2017 at 10:49:21PM +0300, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> > > On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 03:42:08PM +0200, Maxime Coquelin wrote:
> > > > This is an revival from a thread I initiated earlier this year [0], that
> > > > I had to postpone due to other priorities.
> > > > 
> > > > First, I'd like to thanks reviewers of my first proposal, this new
> > > > version tries to address the comments made:
> > > >  1.This is Nova's role and not Libvirt's to query hosts supported
> > > > compatibility modes and to select one, since Nova adds the vhost-user
> > > > ports and has visibility on other hosts. Hence I remove libvirt ML and
> > > > add Openstack one in the recipient list.
> > > >  2. By default, the compatibility version selected is the most recent
> > > > one, except if the admin selects on older compat version.
> > > > 
> > > > The goal of this thread is to draft a solution based on the outcomes
> > > > of discussions with contributors of the different parties (DPDK/OVS
> > > > /Nova/...).
> > > > 
> > > > I'm really interested on feedback from OVS & Nova contributors,
> > > > as my experience with these projects is rather limited.
> > > > 
> > > > 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
> > > > re-negotiation 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. (e.g.
> > > > configurable queues sizes)
> > > > 
> > > > What we need is to be able to query the destination host's backend to
> > > > ensure migration is possible before it is initiated.
> > > 
> > > This remided me strongly of the issues around the virtual CPU modeling
> > > in KVM, see
> > > https://wiki.qemu.org/index.php/Features/CPUModels#Querying_host_capabilities
> > > 
> > > QEMU recently gained query-cpu-model-expansion to allow capability 
> > > queries.
> > > 
> > > Cc Eduardo accordingly. Eduardo, could you please take a look -
> > > how is the problem solved on the KVM/VCPU side? Do the above
> > > problem and solution for vhost look similar?
> > 
> > (Sorry for taking so long to reply)
> > 
> > CPU configuration in QEMU has the additional problem of features
> > depending on host hardware and kernel capabilities (not just QEMU
> > software capabilities).  Do you have vhost-user features that
> > depend on the host kernel or hardware too, or all of them just
> > depend on the vhost-user backend software?
> 
> vhost-net features depend on host kernel.
> 
> > If it depends only on software, a solution similar to how
> > machine-types work in QEMU sound enough.  If features depend on
> > host kernel or host hardware too, it is a bit more complex: it
> > means you need an interface to find out if each configurable
> > feature/version is really available on the host.
> > 
> > (In the case of CPU models, we started with an interface that
> > reported which CPU models were runnable on the host.  But as
> > libvirt allows enabling/disabling individual CPU features, the
> > interface had to be extended to report which CPU features were
> > available/unavailable on the host.)
> > 
> >   * * *
> > 
> > Now, there's one thing that seems very different here: the
> > guest-visible interface is not defined only by QEMU, but also by
> > the vhost-user backend.  Is that correct?
> 
> Not exactly. As long as there are no bugs it's defined by QEMU but
> depends on backend capabilities. Bugs in a backend could be guest
> visible - same as kvm really.

I'm a bit confused here.

I will try to enumerate the 

Re: [ovs-dev] [RFC v2] [OVS/NOVA] Vhost-user backends cross-version migration support

[Eduardo Habkost]

I'm CCing libvir-list and qemu-devel because I would like to get
feedback from libvirt and QEMU developers too.

On Tue, Aug 08, 2017 at 10:49:21PM +0300, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 03:42:08PM +0200, Maxime Coquelin wrote:
> > This is an revival from a thread I initiated earlier this year [0], that
> > I had to postpone due to other priorities.
> > 
> > First, I'd like to thanks reviewers of my first proposal, this new
> > version tries to address the comments made:
> >  1.This is Nova's role and not Libvirt's to query hosts supported
> > compatibility modes and to select one, since Nova adds the vhost-user
> > ports and has visibility on other hosts. Hence I remove libvirt ML and
> > add Openstack one in the recipient list.
> >  2. By default, the compatibility version selected is the most recent
> > one, except if the admin selects on older compat version.
> > 
> > The goal of this thread is to draft a solution based on the outcomes
> > of discussions with contributors of the different parties (DPDK/OVS
> > /Nova/...).
> > 
> > I'm really interested on feedback from OVS & Nova contributors,
> > as my experience with these projects is rather limited.
> > 
> > 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
> > re-negotiation 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. (e.g.
> > configurable queues sizes)
> > 
> > What we need is to be able to query the destination host's backend to
> > ensure migration is possible before it is initiated.
> 
> This remided me strongly of the issues around the virtual CPU modeling
> in KVM, see
> https://wiki.qemu.org/index.php/Features/CPUModels#Querying_host_capabilities
> 
> QEMU recently gained query-cpu-model-expansion to allow capability queries.
> 
> Cc Eduardo accordingly. Eduardo, could you please take a look -
> how is the problem solved on the KVM/VCPU side? Do the above
> problem and solution for vhost look similar?

(Sorry for taking so long to reply)

CPU configuration in QEMU has the additional problem of features
depending on host hardware and kernel capabilities (not just QEMU
software capabilities).  Do you have vhost-user features that
depend on the host kernel or hardware too, or all of them just
depend on the vhost-user backend software?

If it depends only on software, a solution similar to how
machine-types work in QEMU sound enough.  If features depend on
host kernel or host hardware too, it is a bit more complex: it
means you need an interface to find out if each configurable
feature/version is really available on the host.

(In the case of CPU models, we started with an interface that
reported which CPU models were runnable on the host.  But as
libvirt allows enabling/disabling individual CPU features, the
interface had to be extended to report which CPU features were
available/unavailable on the host.)

  * * *

Now, there's one thing that seems very different here: the
guest-visible interface is not defined only by QEMU, but also by
the vhost-user backend.  Is that correct?

This means QEMU won't fully control the resulting guest ABI
anymore.  I would really prefer if we could keep libvirt+QEMU in
control of the guest ABI as usual, making QEMU configure all the
guest-visible vhost-user features.  But I understand this would
require additional interfaces between QEMU and libvirt, and
extending the libvirt APIs.

So, if QEMU is really not going to control the resulting guest
ABI completely, can we at least provide a mechanism which QEMU
can use to ask vhost-user for guest ABI details on migration, and
block migration if vhost-user was misconfigured on the
destination host when migrating?


> 
> > The below proposal has been drafted based on how Qemu manages machine types:
> > 
> > Proposal
> > 
> > 
> > The idea is to 

Re: [ovs-dev] [RFC v2] [OVS/NOVA] Vhost-user backends cross-version migration support

[Michael S. Tsirkin]

On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 03:42:08PM +0200, Maxime Coquelin wrote:
> This is an revival from a thread I initiated earlier this year [0], that
> I had to postpone due to other priorities.
> 
> First, I'd like to thanks reviewers of my first proposal, this new
> version tries to address the comments made:
>  1.This is Nova's role and not Libvirt's to query hosts supported
> compatibility modes and to select one, since Nova adds the vhost-user
> ports and has visibility on other hosts. Hence I remove libvirt ML and
> add Openstack one in the recipient list.
>  2. By default, the compatibility version selected is the most recent
> one, except if the admin selects on older compat version.
> 
> The goal of this thread is to draft a solution based on the outcomes
> of discussions with contributors of the different parties (DPDK/OVS
> /Nova/...).
> 
> I'm really interested on feedback from OVS & Nova contributors,
> as my experience with these projects is rather limited.
> 
> 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
> re-negotiation 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. (e.g.
> configurable queues sizes)
> 
> What we need is to be able to query the destination host's backend to
> ensure migration is possible before it is initiated.

This remided me strongly of the issues around the virtual CPU modeling
in KVM, see
https://wiki.qemu.org/index.php/Features/CPUModels#Querying_host_capabilities

QEMU recently gained query-cpu-model-expansion to allow capability queries.

Cc Eduardo accordingly. Eduardo, could you please take a look -
how is the problem solved on the KVM/VCPU side? Do the above
problem and solution for vhost look similar?

> The below proposal has been drafted based on how Qemu manages machine types:
> 
> Proposal
> 
> 
> The idea is to have a table of supported version strings in OVS,
> associated to key/value pairs. Nova or any other management tool could
> query OVS for the list of supported versions strings for each hosts.
> By default, the latest compatibility version will be selected, but the
> admin can select manually an older compatibility mode in order to ensure
> successful migration to an older destination host.
> 
> Then, Nova would add OVS's vhost-user port with adding the selected
> version (compatibility mode) as an extra parameter.
> 
> Before starting the VM migration, Nova will ensure both source and
> destination hosts' vhost-user interfaces run in the same compatibility
> modes, and will prevent it if this is not the case.
> 
> 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 port add
> time to ensure migration will succeed to host B.
> 
> Advantage of doing so is that Nova 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 

[ovs-dev] [RFC v2] [OVS/NOVA] Vhost-user backends cross-version migration support

[Maxime Coquelin]

This is an revival from a thread I initiated earlier this year [0], that
I had to postpone due to other priorities.

First, I'd like to thanks reviewers of my first proposal, this new
version tries to address the comments made:
 1.This is Nova's role and not Libvirt's to query hosts supported
compatibility modes and to select one, since Nova adds the vhost-user
ports and has visibility on other hosts. Hence I remove libvirt ML and
add Openstack one in the recipient list.
 2. By default, the compatibility version selected is the most recent
one, except if the admin selects on older compat version.

The goal of this thread is to draft a solution based on the outcomes
of discussions with contributors of the different parties (DPDK/OVS
/Nova/...).

I'm really interested on feedback from OVS & Nova contributors,
as my experience with these projects is rather limited.

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
re-negotiation 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. (e.g.
configurable queues sizes)

What we need is to be able to query the destination host's backend to
ensure migration is possible before it is initiated.

The below proposal has been drafted based on how Qemu manages machine types:

Proposal


The idea is to have a table of supported version strings in OVS,
associated to key/value pairs. Nova or any other management tool could
query OVS for the list of supported versions strings for each hosts.
By default, the latest compatibility version will be selected, but the
admin can select manually an older compatibility mode in order to ensure
successful migration to an older destination host.

Then, Nova would add OVS's vhost-user port with adding the selected
version (compatibility mode) as an extra parameter.

Before starting the VM migration, Nova will ensure both source and
destination hosts' vhost-user interfaces run in the same compatibility
modes, and will prevent it if this is not the case.

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 port add
time to ensure migration will succeed to host B.

Advantage of doing so is that Nova 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 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*