diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/s390/vfio-ccw.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/s390/vfio-ccw.rst | 326 |
1 files changed, 326 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/s390/vfio-ccw.rst b/Documentation/s390/vfio-ccw.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..1f6d0b56d53e --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/s390/vfio-ccw.rst @@ -0,0 +1,326 @@ +================================== +vfio-ccw: the basic infrastructure +================================== + +Introduction +------------ + +Here we describe the vfio support for I/O subchannel devices for +Linux/s390. Motivation for vfio-ccw is to passthrough subchannels to a +virtual machine, while vfio is the means. + +Different than other hardware architectures, s390 has defined a unified +I/O access method, which is so called Channel I/O. It has its own access +patterns: + +- Channel programs run asynchronously on a separate (co)processor. +- The channel subsystem will access any memory designated by the caller + in the channel program directly, i.e. there is no iommu involved. + +Thus when we introduce vfio support for these devices, we realize it +with a mediated device (mdev) implementation. The vfio mdev will be +added to an iommu group, so as to make itself able to be managed by the +vfio framework. And we add read/write callbacks for special vfio I/O +regions to pass the channel programs from the mdev to its parent device +(the real I/O subchannel device) to do further address translation and +to perform I/O instructions. + +This document does not intend to explain the s390 I/O architecture in +every detail. More information/reference could be found here: + +- A good start to know Channel I/O in general: + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_I/O +- s390 architecture: + s390 Principles of Operation manual (IBM Form. No. SA22-7832) +- The existing QEMU code which implements a simple emulated channel + subsystem could also be a good reference. It makes it easier to follow + the flow. + qemu/hw/s390x/css.c + +For vfio mediated device framework: +- Documentation/vfio-mediated-device.txt + +Motivation of vfio-ccw +---------------------- + +Typically, a guest virtualized via QEMU/KVM on s390 only sees +paravirtualized virtio devices via the "Virtio Over Channel I/O +(virtio-ccw)" transport. This makes virtio devices discoverable via +standard operating system algorithms for handling channel devices. + +However this is not enough. On s390 for the majority of devices, which +use the standard Channel I/O based mechanism, we also need to provide +the functionality of passing through them to a QEMU virtual machine. +This includes devices that don't have a virtio counterpart (e.g. tape +drives) or that have specific characteristics which guests want to +exploit. + +For passing a device to a guest, we want to use the same interface as +everybody else, namely vfio. We implement this vfio support for channel +devices via the vfio mediated device framework and the subchannel device +driver "vfio_ccw". + +Access patterns of CCW devices +------------------------------ + +s390 architecture has implemented a so called channel subsystem, that +provides a unified view of the devices physically attached to the +systems. Though the s390 hardware platform knows about a huge variety of +different peripheral attachments like disk devices (aka. DASDs), tapes, +communication controllers, etc. They can all be accessed by a well +defined access method and they are presenting I/O completion a unified +way: I/O interruptions. + +All I/O requires the use of channel command words (CCWs). A CCW is an +instruction to a specialized I/O channel processor. A channel program is +a sequence of CCWs which are executed by the I/O channel subsystem. To +issue a channel program to the channel subsystem, it is required to +build an operation request block (ORB), which can be used to point out +the format of the CCW and other control information to the system. The +operating system signals the I/O channel subsystem to begin executing +the channel program with a SSCH (start sub-channel) instruction. The +central processor is then free to proceed with non-I/O instructions +until interrupted. The I/O completion result is received by the +interrupt handler in the form of interrupt response block (IRB). + +Back to vfio-ccw, in short: + +- ORBs and channel programs are built in guest kernel (with guest + physical addresses). +- ORBs and channel programs are passed to the host kernel. +- Host kernel translates the guest physical addresses to real addresses + and starts the I/O with issuing a privileged Channel I/O instruction + (e.g SSCH). +- channel programs run asynchronously on a separate processor. +- I/O completion will be signaled to the host with I/O interruptions. + And it will be copied as IRB to user space to pass it back to the + guest. + +Physical vfio ccw device and its child mdev +------------------------------------------- + +As mentioned above, we realize vfio-ccw with a mdev implementation. + +Channel I/O does not have IOMMU hardware support, so the physical +vfio-ccw device does not have an IOMMU level translation or isolation. + +Subchannel I/O instructions are all privileged instructions. When +handling the I/O instruction interception, vfio-ccw has the software +policing and translation how the channel program is programmed before +it gets sent to hardware. + +Within this implementation, we have two drivers for two types of +devices: + +- The vfio_ccw driver for the physical subchannel device. + This is an I/O subchannel driver for the real subchannel device. It + realizes a group of callbacks and registers to the mdev framework as a + parent (physical) device. As a consequence, mdev provides vfio_ccw a + generic interface (sysfs) to create mdev devices. A vfio mdev could be + created by vfio_ccw then and added to the mediated bus. It is the vfio + device that added to an IOMMU group and a vfio group. + vfio_ccw also provides an I/O region to accept channel program + request from user space and store I/O interrupt result for user + space to retrieve. To notify user space an I/O completion, it offers + an interface to setup an eventfd fd for asynchronous signaling. + +- The vfio_mdev driver for the mediated vfio ccw device. + This is provided by the mdev framework. It is a vfio device driver for + the mdev that created by vfio_ccw. + It realizes a group of vfio device driver callbacks, adds itself to a + vfio group, and registers itself to the mdev framework as a mdev + driver. + It uses a vfio iommu backend that uses the existing map and unmap + ioctls, but rather than programming them into an IOMMU for a device, + it simply stores the translations for use by later requests. This + means that a device programmed in a VM with guest physical addresses + can have the vfio kernel convert that address to process virtual + address, pin the page and program the hardware with the host physical + address in one step. + For a mdev, the vfio iommu backend will not pin the pages during the + VFIO_IOMMU_MAP_DMA ioctl. Mdev framework will only maintain a database + of the iova<->vaddr mappings in this operation. And they export a + vfio_pin_pages and a vfio_unpin_pages interfaces from the vfio iommu + backend for the physical devices to pin and unpin pages by demand. + +Below is a high Level block diagram:: + + +-------------+ + | | + | +---------+ | mdev_register_driver() +--------------+ + | | Mdev | +<-----------------------+ | + | | bus | | | vfio_mdev.ko | + | | driver | +----------------------->+ |<-> VFIO user + | +---------+ | probe()/remove() +--------------+ APIs + | | + | MDEV CORE | + | MODULE | + | mdev.ko | + | +---------+ | mdev_register_device() +--------------+ + | |Physical | +<-----------------------+ | + | | device | | | vfio_ccw.ko |<-> subchannel + | |interface| +----------------------->+ | device + | +---------+ | callback +--------------+ + +-------------+ + +The process of how these work together. + +1. vfio_ccw.ko drives the physical I/O subchannel, and registers the + physical device (with callbacks) to mdev framework. + When vfio_ccw probing the subchannel device, it registers device + pointer and callbacks to the mdev framework. Mdev related file nodes + under the device node in sysfs would be created for the subchannel + device, namely 'mdev_create', 'mdev_destroy' and + 'mdev_supported_types'. +2. Create a mediated vfio ccw device. + Use the 'mdev_create' sysfs file, we need to manually create one (and + only one for our case) mediated device. +3. vfio_mdev.ko drives the mediated ccw device. + vfio_mdev is also the vfio device drvier. It will probe the mdev and + add it to an iommu_group and a vfio_group. Then we could pass through + the mdev to a guest. + +vfio-ccw I/O region +------------------- + +An I/O region is used to accept channel program request from user +space and store I/O interrupt result for user space to retrieve. The +definition of the region is:: + + struct ccw_io_region { + #define ORB_AREA_SIZE 12 + __u8 orb_area[ORB_AREA_SIZE]; + #define SCSW_AREA_SIZE 12 + __u8 scsw_area[SCSW_AREA_SIZE]; + #define IRB_AREA_SIZE 96 + __u8 irb_area[IRB_AREA_SIZE]; + __u32 ret_code; + } __packed; + +While starting an I/O request, orb_area should be filled with the +guest ORB, and scsw_area should be filled with the SCSW of the Virtual +Subchannel. + +irb_area stores the I/O result. + +ret_code stores a return code for each access of the region. + +vfio-ccw operation details +-------------------------- + +vfio-ccw follows what vfio-pci did on the s390 platform and uses +vfio-iommu-type1 as the vfio iommu backend. + +* CCW translation APIs + A group of APIs (start with `cp_`) to do CCW translation. The CCWs + passed in by a user space program are organized with their guest + physical memory addresses. These APIs will copy the CCWs into kernel + space, and assemble a runnable kernel channel program by updating the + guest physical addresses with their corresponding host physical addresses. + Note that we have to use IDALs even for direct-access CCWs, as the + referenced memory can be located anywhere, including above 2G. + +* vfio_ccw device driver + This driver utilizes the CCW translation APIs and introduces + vfio_ccw, which is the driver for the I/O subchannel devices you want + to pass through. + vfio_ccw implements the following vfio ioctls:: + + VFIO_DEVICE_GET_INFO + VFIO_DEVICE_GET_IRQ_INFO + VFIO_DEVICE_GET_REGION_INFO + VFIO_DEVICE_RESET + VFIO_DEVICE_SET_IRQS + + This provides an I/O region, so that the user space program can pass a + channel program to the kernel, to do further CCW translation before + issuing them to a real device. + This also provides the SET_IRQ ioctl to setup an event notifier to + notify the user space program the I/O completion in an asynchronous + way. + +The use of vfio-ccw is not limited to QEMU, while QEMU is definitely a +good example to get understand how these patches work. Here is a little +bit more detail how an I/O request triggered by the QEMU guest will be +handled (without error handling). + +Explanation: + +- Q1-Q7: QEMU side process. +- K1-K5: Kernel side process. + +Q1. + Get I/O region info during initialization. + +Q2. + Setup event notifier and handler to handle I/O completion. + +... ... + +Q3. + Intercept a ssch instruction. +Q4. + Write the guest channel program and ORB to the I/O region. + + K1. + Copy from guest to kernel. + K2. + Translate the guest channel program to a host kernel space + channel program, which becomes runnable for a real device. + K3. + With the necessary information contained in the orb passed in + by QEMU, issue the ccwchain to the device. + K4. + Return the ssch CC code. +Q5. + Return the CC code to the guest. + +... ... + + K5. + Interrupt handler gets the I/O result and write the result to + the I/O region. + K6. + Signal QEMU to retrieve the result. + +Q6. + Get the signal and event handler reads out the result from the I/O + region. +Q7. + Update the irb for the guest. + +Limitations +----------- + +The current vfio-ccw implementation focuses on supporting basic commands +needed to implement block device functionality (read/write) of DASD/ECKD +device only. Some commands may need special handling in the future, for +example, anything related to path grouping. + +DASD is a kind of storage device. While ECKD is a data recording format. +More information for DASD and ECKD could be found here: +https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-access_storage_device +https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_key_data + +Together with the corresponding work in QEMU, we can bring the passed +through DASD/ECKD device online in a guest now and use it as a block +device. + +While the current code allows the guest to start channel programs via +START SUBCHANNEL, support for HALT SUBCHANNEL or CLEAR SUBCHANNEL is +not yet implemented. + +vfio-ccw supports classic (command mode) channel I/O only. Transport +mode (HPF) is not supported. + +QDIO subchannels are currently not supported. Classic devices other than +DASD/ECKD might work, but have not been tested. + +Reference +--------- +1. ESA/s390 Principles of Operation manual (IBM Form. No. SA22-7832) +2. ESA/390 Common I/O Device Commands manual (IBM Form. No. SA22-7204) +3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_I/O +4. Documentation/s390/cds.rst +5. Documentation/vfio.txt +6. Documentation/vfio-mediated-device.txt |
