Re: [PATCH 30 of 38] xen: implement io_apic_ops

From: Eric W. Biederman
Date: Thu Nov 20 2008 - 23:36:10 EST


Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@xxxxxxxx> writes:

>
> Yes, I suppose we can statically partition the irq space. In fact the original
> 2.6.18-xen dom0 kernel does precisely that, but runs into limitations because of
> the compile-time limit on NR_IRQS in that kernel. If we move to a purely
> dynamically allocated irq space, then having a sparse allocation if irqs becomes
> reasonable again, for msis and vectorless Xen interrupts.
>
>> The difference is that the xen sources are not delivered using vectors. The cpu
>> vector numbers we do hide and treat as an implementation detail. And I am totally
>> happy not going through the vector allocation path.
>>
>
> Right. And in the physical irq event channel case, the vector space is managed
> by Xen, so we need to use Xen to allocate the vector, then program that into the
> appropriate place in the ioapic.

We should be able to share code with iommu for irqs handling, at first glance you
are describing a pretty similar problem. Now I don't know think the interrupt
remapping code is any kind of beauty but that seems to be roughly what you
are doing with Xen domU. I certainly think with some careful factoring
we can share the ioapic munging code. And the code to pick how we program
the ioapics.

>> My gut feel says that you just want to use a different set of irq operations when
>> doing Xen native and working with hardware interrupts. I haven't seen the code so
>> I don't know how you interact there. Except in dom0 this is not a consideration so
>> I don't how it is handled.
>>
>
> Yeah. In the domU case, where there's no physical interrupts, the Xen code
> completely avoids the ioapic/vector stuff, and directly converts an event
> channel into an irq. Indeed, physical irq delivery is handled the same way; its
> just that the setup requires touching the ioapics to program the appropriate
> vector and bind it to an event channel.

Reasonable. A lot like the intel interrupt remapping code in that respect. The
message we program in has little to do with the vector the interrupt arrives on.

So I don't quite know where to hook it but if we are careful we should be able
to get a good interrupt mapping.

Eric
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