Re: Regression building HVM domains following "x86: add bitmap of enabled emulated devices"

[Ian Campbell <ian.campbell@citrix.com>]

On Wed, 2015-11-11 at 21:07 +0000, Andrew Cooper wrote:
> On 11/11/2015 20:57, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 07:13:25PM +0000, Andrew Cooper wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > > 
> > > Xapi uses the Ocaml stub_xc_domain_create() which uses
> > > xc_domain_create().  xc_domain_create() itself zeros the arch
> > > configuration but passes flags straight through.
> > Ooops.
> > > As a result of c/s 171946ab "x86: add bitmap of enabled emulated
> > > devices", xc_domain_create() can no longer be used to construct HVM
> > > domains, failing the hypervisor-side sanity check.
> > > 
> > > Needless to say, this has put a dent in XenServer's automated
> > > testing.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > There are a couple of options, but neither of them are fantastic.
> > > 
> > > 1) Have xc_domain_create() fill in XEN_X86_EMU_ALL based on
> > > XEN_DOMCTL_CDF_hvm_guest and XEN_DOMCTL_CDF_pvh_guest
> > > 
> > > or
> > > 
> > > 2) Mandate that all callers provide a valid arch configuration,
> > > essentially turning xc_domain_create() into xc_domain_create_config()
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Longterm, what is the plan wrt guest construction?  With my x86
> > > maintainership hat on, I don't want to keep XEN_DOMCTL_CDF_pvh_guest
> > > in
> > > the interface, so I do not like 1) as an option.
> > > 
> > > `git grep` indicates that the 3 users of xc_domain_create() are the
> > > Ocaml/Python stubs and init-xenstore-domain.c which only constructs a
> > > PV
> > > guest (which bypasses the issue), whereas libxl uses
> > > xc_domain_create_config().  (For the python stubs, I expect this will
> > > hit Oracle who are still using Xend to my knowledge).
> > We are moving to 'xl'.. and there are no Xend bits anymore.
> > > Option 2) is a better alternative, but will have a knock-on effect
> > > for
> > > downstream consumers of the stubs.
> > But aren't xc_* calls not-release-stable?
> 
> They are indeed not, which offers the option to change the API.
> 
> > 
> > Here is a third idea::
> > 
> >  Make 'xc_domain_create' call 'xc_domain_create_config'. The
> > xc_domain_create
> >  would synthesis the flags and we would put an 'deprecated' flag on it
> >  (whatever that means?) and remove 'xc_domain_create' in 4.7?
> 
> This is option 1.  xc_domain_create() already calls
> xc_domain_create_config() but with a zeroed arch configuration.
> 
> The issue is that modifying xc_domain_create() will preclude their
> construction of DMLite domains.

I think that's ok, we would essentially be declaring that
xc_domain_create_config() is the formally supported interface which can do
everything while xc_domain_create() is essentially a compat shim which can
only do things up to a certain point.

Users who want more would need to switch to the _config variant.

I'm half considering suggesting removing xc_domain_create(), renaming
xc_domain_create_config() without the _config() and having it do some
compat thing if the passed config==NULL, such that existing callers of
xc_domain_create() just need to add NULL to retain their current behaviour.

Ian.


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