summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/Documentation/virtual/kvm
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorDavid Gibson <dwg@au1.ibm.com>2011-06-29 00:22:41 +0000
committerAvi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>2011-07-12 13:16:56 +0300
commit54738c097163c3f01e67ccc85462b78d4d4f495f (patch)
treecba8d389d50251856cbe967c16ba2193a30d6d12 /Documentation/virtual/kvm
parenta8606e20e41a8149456bafdf76ad29d47672027c (diff)
KVM: PPC: Accelerate H_PUT_TCE by implementing it in real mode
This improves I/O performance for guests using the PAPR paravirtualization interface by making the H_PUT_TCE hcall faster, by implementing it in real mode. H_PUT_TCE is used for updating virtual IOMMU tables, and is used both for virtual I/O and for real I/O in the PAPR interface. Since this moves the IOMMU tables into the kernel, we define a new KVM_CREATE_SPAPR_TCE ioctl to allow qemu to create the tables. The ioctl returns a file descriptor which can be used to mmap the newly created table. The qemu driver models use them in the same way as userspace managed tables, but they can be updated directly by the guest with a real-mode H_PUT_TCE implementation, reducing the number of host/guest context switches during guest IO. There are certain circumstances where it is useful for userland qemu to write to the TCE table even if the kernel H_PUT_TCE path is used most of the time. Specifically, allowing this will avoid awkwardness when we need to reset the table. More importantly, we will in the future need to write the table in order to restore its state after a checkpoint resume or migration. Signed-off-by: David Gibson <david@gibson.dropbear.id.au> Signed-off-by: Paul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org> Signed-off-by: Alexander Graf <agraf@suse.de>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/virtual/kvm')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/virtual/kvm/api.txt35
1 files changed, 35 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/virtual/kvm/api.txt b/Documentation/virtual/kvm/api.txt
index e8875fef3eb..a1d344d5ff4 100644
--- a/Documentation/virtual/kvm/api.txt
+++ b/Documentation/virtual/kvm/api.txt
@@ -1350,6 +1350,41 @@ The following flags are defined:
If datamatch flag is set, the event will be signaled only if the written value
to the registered address is equal to datamatch in struct kvm_ioeventfd.
+4.62 KVM_CREATE_SPAPR_TCE
+
+Capability: KVM_CAP_SPAPR_TCE
+Architectures: powerpc
+Type: vm ioctl
+Parameters: struct kvm_create_spapr_tce (in)
+Returns: file descriptor for manipulating the created TCE table
+
+This creates a virtual TCE (translation control entry) table, which
+is an IOMMU for PAPR-style virtual I/O. It is used to translate
+logical addresses used in virtual I/O into guest physical addresses,
+and provides a scatter/gather capability for PAPR virtual I/O.
+
+/* for KVM_CAP_SPAPR_TCE */
+struct kvm_create_spapr_tce {
+ __u64 liobn;
+ __u32 window_size;
+};
+
+The liobn field gives the logical IO bus number for which to create a
+TCE table. The window_size field specifies the size of the DMA window
+which this TCE table will translate - the table will contain one 64
+bit TCE entry for every 4kiB of the DMA window.
+
+When the guest issues an H_PUT_TCE hcall on a liobn for which a TCE
+table has been created using this ioctl(), the kernel will handle it
+in real mode, updating the TCE table. H_PUT_TCE calls for other
+liobns will cause a vm exit and must be handled by userspace.
+
+The return value is a file descriptor which can be passed to mmap(2)
+to map the created TCE table into userspace. This lets userspace read
+the entries written by kernel-handled H_PUT_TCE calls, and also lets
+userspace update the TCE table directly which is useful in some
+circumstances.
+
5. The kvm_run structure
Application code obtains a pointer to the kvm_run structure by