linux-kernel - Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH RFC 0/3] Xen on Virtio

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <20151214161037-mutt-send-email-mst@redhat.com>
Date:	Mon, 14 Dec 2015 16:12:13 +0200
From:	"Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@...hat.com>
To:	David Vrabel <david.vrabel@...rix.com>
Cc:	Stefano Stabellini <stefano.stabellini@...citrix.com>,
	xen-devel@...ts.xenproject.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	virtualization@...ts.linux-foundation.org,
	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>
Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH RFC 0/3] Xen on Virtio

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 02:00:05PM +0000, David Vrabel wrote:
> On 07/12/15 16:19, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > this patch series introduces support for running Linux on top of Xen
> > inside a virtual machine with virtio devices (nested virt scenario).
> > The problem is that Linux virtio drivers use virt_to_phys to get the
> > guest pseudo-physical addresses to pass to the backend, which doesn't
> > work as expected on Xen.
> > 
> > Switching the virtio drivers to the dma APIs (dma_alloc_coherent,
> > dma_map/unmap_single and dma_map/unmap_sg) would solve the problem, as
> > Xen support in Linux provides an implementation of the dma API which
> > takes care of the additional address conversions. However using the dma
> > API would increase the complexity of the non-Xen case too. We would also
> > need to keep track of the physical or virtual address in addition to the
> > dma address for each vring_desc to be able to free the memory in
> > detach_buf (see patch #3).
> > 
> > Instead this series adds few obvious checks to perform address
> > translations in a couple of key places, without changing non-Xen code
> > paths. You are welcome to suggest improvements or alternative
> > implementations.
> 
> Andy Lutomirski also looked at this.  Andy what happened to this work?
> 
> David

The approach there was to try and convert all virtio to use DMA
API unconditionally.
This is reasonable if there's a way for devices to request
1:1 mappings individually.
As that is currently missing, that patchset can not be merged yet.

-- 
MST
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/