[PATCH v23 0/2] Virtio-balloon: support free page reporting

[PATCH v23 0/2] Virtio-balloon: support free page reporting

[Wei Wang]

This patch series is separated from the previous "Virtio-balloon
Enhancement" series. The new feature, VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_FREE_PAGE_VQ,  
implemented by this series enables the virtio-balloon driver to report
hints of guest free pages to the host. It can be used to accelerate live
migration of VMs. Here is an introduction of this usage:

Live migration needs to transfer the VM's memory from the source machine
to the destination round by round. For the 1st round, all the VM's memory
is transferred. From the 2nd round, only the pieces of memory that were
written by the guest (after the 1st round) are transferred. One method
that is popularly used by the hypervisor to track which part of memory is
written is to write-protect all the guest memory.

The second feature enables the optimization of the 1st round memory
transfer - the hypervisor can skip the transfer of guest free pages in the
1st round. It is not concerned that the memory pages are used after they
are given to the hypervisor as a hint of the free pages, because they will
be tracked by the hypervisor and transferred in the next round if they are
used and written.

ChangeLog:
v22->v23:
    - change to kick the device when the vq is half-way full;
    - open-code batch_free_page_sg into add_one_sg;
    - change cmd_id from "uint32_t" to "__virtio32";
    - reserver one entry in the vq for teh driver to send cmd_id, instead
      of busywaiting for an available entry;
    - add "stop_update" check before queue_work for prudence purpose for
      now, will have a separate patch to discuss this flag check later;
    - init_vqs: change to put some variables on stack to have simpler
      implementation;
    - add destroy_workqueue(vb->balloon_wq);

v21->v22:
    - add_one_sg: some code and comment re-arrangement
    - send_cmd_id: handle a cornercase

For previous ChangeLog, please reference
https://lwn.net/Articles/743660/

Wei Wang (2):
  mm: support reporting free page blocks
  virtio-balloon: VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_FREE_PAGE_VQ

 drivers/virtio/virtio_balloon.c     | 228 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------
 include/linux/mm.h                  |   6 +
 include/uapi/linux/virtio_balloon.h |   6 +
 mm/page_alloc.c                     |  91 ++++++++++++++
 4 files changed, 298 insertions(+), 33 deletions(-)

-- 
2.7.4

[PATCH v23 0/2] Virtio-balloon: support free page reporting

[Wei Wang]

This patch series is separated from the previous "Virtio-balloon
Enhancement" series. The new feature, VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_FREE_PAGE_VQ,  
implemented by this series enables the virtio-balloon driver to report
hints of guest free pages to the host. It can be used to accelerate live
migration of VMs. Here is an introduction of this usage:

Live migration needs to transfer the VM's memory from the source machine
to the destination round by round. For the 1st round, all the VM's memory
is transferred. From the 2nd round, only the pieces of memory that were
written by the guest (after the 1st round) are transferred. One method
that is popularly used by the hypervisor to track which part of memory is
written is to write-protect all the guest memory.

The second feature enables the optimization of the 1st round memory
transfer - the hypervisor can skip the transfer of guest free pages in the
1st round. It is not concerned that the memory pages are used after they
are given to the hypervisor as a hint of the free pages, because they will
be tracked by the hypervisor and transferred in the next round if they are
used and written.

ChangeLog:
v22->v23:
    - change to kick the device when the vq is half-way full;
    - open-code batch_free_page_sg into add_one_sg;
    - change cmd_id from "uint32_t" to "__virtio32";
    - reserver one entry in the vq for teh driver to send cmd_id, instead
      of busywaiting for an available entry;
    - add "stop_update" check before queue_work for prudence purpose for
      now, will have a separate patch to discuss this flag check later;
    - init_vqs: change to put some variables on stack to have simpler
      implementation;
    - add destroy_workqueue(vb->balloon_wq);

v21->v22:
    - add_one_sg: some code and comment re-arrangement
    - send_cmd_id: handle a cornercase

For previous ChangeLog, please reference
https://lwn.net/Articles/743660/

Wei Wang (2):
  mm: support reporting free page blocks
  virtio-balloon: VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_FREE_PAGE_VQ

 drivers/virtio/virtio_balloon.c     | 228 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------
 include/linux/mm.h                  |   6 +
 include/uapi/linux/virtio_balloon.h |   6 +
 mm/page_alloc.c                     |  91 ++++++++++++++
 4 files changed, 298 insertions(+), 33 deletions(-)

-- 
2.7.4

[PATCH v23 0/2] Virtio-balloon: support free page reporting

[Wei Wang]

This patch series is separated from the previous "Virtio-balloon
Enhancement" series. The new feature, VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_FREE_PAGE_VQ,  
implemented by this series enables the virtio-balloon driver to report
hints of guest free pages to the host. It can be used to accelerate live
migration of VMs. Here is an introduction of this usage:

Live migration needs to transfer the VM's memory from the source machine
to the destination round by round. For the 1st round, all the VM's memory
is transferred. From the 2nd round, only the pieces of memory that were
written by the guest (after the 1st round) are transferred. One method
that is popularly used by the hypervisor to track which part of memory is
written is to write-protect all the guest memory.

The second feature enables the optimization of the 1st round memory
transfer - the hypervisor can skip the transfer of guest free pages in the
1st round. It is not concerned that the memory pages are used after they
are given to the hypervisor as a hint of the free pages, because they will
be tracked by the hypervisor and transferred in the next round if they are
used and written.

ChangeLog:
v22->v23:
    - change to kick the device when the vq is half-way full;
    - open-code batch_free_page_sg into add_one_sg;
    - change cmd_id from "uint32_t" to "__virtio32";
    - reserver one entry in the vq for teh driver to send cmd_id, instead
      of busywaiting for an available entry;
    - add "stop_update" check before queue_work for prudence purpose for
      now, will have a separate patch to discuss this flag check later;
    - init_vqs: change to put some variables on stack to have simpler
      implementation;
    - add destroy_workqueue(vb->balloon_wq);

v21->v22:
    - add_one_sg: some code and comment re-arrangement
    - send_cmd_id: handle a cornercase

For previous ChangeLog, please reference
https://lwn.net/Articles/743660/

Wei Wang (2):
  mm: support reporting free page blocks
  virtio-balloon: VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_FREE_PAGE_VQ

 drivers/virtio/virtio_balloon.c     | 228 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------
 include/linux/mm.h                  |   6 +
 include/uapi/linux/virtio_balloon.h |   6 +
 mm/page_alloc.c                     |  91 ++++++++++++++
 4 files changed, 298 insertions(+), 33 deletions(-)

-- 
2.7.4

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