Re: [RFC] /dev/ioasid uAPI proposal

From: Paolo Bonzini
Date: Sat Jun 05 2021 - 02:23:09 EST


On 04/06/21 19:22, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
4) The KVM interface is the very simple enable/disable WBINVD.
Possessing a FD that can do IOMMU_EXECUTE_WBINVD is required
to enable WBINVD at KVM.

The KVM interface is the same kvm-vfio device that exists already. The userspace API does not need to change at all: adding one VFIO file descriptor with WBINVD enabled to the kvm-vfio device lets the VM use WBINVD functionality (see kvm_vfio_update_coherency).

Alternatively you can add a KVM_DEV_IOASID_{ADD,DEL} pair of ioctls. But it seems useless complication compared to just using what we have now, at least while VMs only use IOASIDs via VFIO.

Either way, there should be no policy attached to the add/delete operations. KVM users want to add the VFIO (or IOASID) file descriptors to the device independent of WBINVD. If userspace wants/needs to apply its own policy on whether to enable WBINVD or not, they can do it on the VFIO/IOASID side:

1) When the device is attached to the IOASID via VFIO_ATTACH_IOASID
it communicates its no-snoop configuration:
- 0 enable, allow WBINVD
- 1 automatic disable, block WBINVD if the platform
IOMMU can police it (what we do today)
- 2 force disable, do not allow BINVD ever

Though, like Alex, it's also not clear to me whether force-disable is useful. Instead userspace can query the IOMMU or the device to ensure it's not enabled.

Paolo