Re: [Xen-devel] [RFC XEN PATCH for-4.13 0/4] Fix: libxl workaround, multiple connection to single QMP socket

From: Anthony PERARD <anthony.perard@citrix.com>
To: Ian Jackson <ian.jackson@citrix.com>
Cc: "xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org" <xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org>,
	Wei Liu <wl@xen.org>
Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] [RFC XEN PATCH for-4.13 0/4] Fix: libxl workaround, multiple connection to single QMP socket
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 16:27:00 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20191028162700.GB1162@perard.uk.xensource.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <23990.53286.572469.441064@mariner.uk.xensource.com>

On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 11:25:26AM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Hi.  Thanks for tackling this swamp.  All very unfortunate.
> 
> Anthony PERARD writes ("[RFC XEN PATCH for-4.13 0/4] Fix: libxl workaround, multiple connection to single QMP socket"):
> > Alternatively to this craziness, it might be possible to increase
> > the `backlog' value by having libxl opening the QMP socket on behalf
> > of QEMU. But this is only possible with a recent version of QEMU
> > (2.12 or newer, released in Apr 2018, or qemu-xen-4.12 or newer). It
> > would involve to discover QEMU's capability before we start the DM,
> > which libxl isn't capable yet.
> 
> I have an ancient unapplied patch somewhere which runs qemu --help
> and greps the output.  If you would like, I can dig it out.
> 
> But one problem with that approach is this: without that feature in
> qemu, what would we do ?  Live with the bug where domain creation
> fails ?  Bodge it by serialising within domain create (awkwardating
> the code) ?
> 
> I have some other suggestions which ought to be considered:
> 
> 
> 1. Send a patch to qemu upstream to allow specifying the socket listen
> queue.
> 
> 1(a) Expect distros to apply that patch to older qemus, if they ship
> older qemus.  Have libxl unconditionally specify that argument.
> 
> 1(b) grep the help output (as I propose above) and if the patch is not
> present, use LD_PRELOAD to wrap listen(2).
> 
> 
> 2. Send a patch to qemu upstream to change the fixed queue length from
> 1 to 10000.  Expect distros to apply that patch to older qemus (even,
> perhaps, if it is not accepted upstream!)  Change libxl to detect
> EAGAIN from qmp connect() and print a message explaining what patch is
> missing.

Those suggestions are interesting idea, but I would prefer to have libxl
been able to deal with any version of QEMU, so without having to patch
QEMU. Beside serialising QMP access in the code, fork/lock strategy
might be the only other way. (Well there is also fork/connect with a
blocking fd, but we already have code for fork/lock.)

So I'll keep working on the fork/lock strategy.

> Since you have provided an implementation of the fork/lock strategy,
> I'll now go and do a detailed review of that.

Thanks,

-- 
Anthony PERARD

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