| Copyright (c) 2014-2017 Red Hat Inc. |
| |
| This work is licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL, version 2 or later. See |
| the COPYING file in the top-level directory. |
| |
| |
| This document explains the IOThread feature and how to write code that runs |
| outside the QEMU global mutex. |
| |
| The main loop and IOThreads |
| --------------------------- |
| QEMU is an event-driven program that can do several things at once using an |
| event loop. The VNC server and the QMP monitor are both processed from the |
| same event loop, which monitors their file descriptors until they become |
| readable and then invokes a callback. |
| |
| The default event loop is called the main loop (see main-loop.c). It is |
| possible to create additional event loop threads using -object |
| iothread,id=my-iothread. |
| |
| Side note: The main loop and IOThread are both event loops but their code is |
| not shared completely. Sometimes it is useful to remember that although they |
| are conceptually similar they are currently not interchangeable. |
| |
| Why IOThreads are useful |
| ------------------------ |
| IOThreads allow the user to control the placement of work. The main loop is a |
| scalability bottleneck on hosts with many CPUs. Work can be spread across |
| several IOThreads instead of just one main loop. When set up correctly this |
| can improve I/O latency and reduce jitter seen by the guest. |
| |
| The main loop is also deeply associated with the QEMU global mutex, which is a |
| scalability bottleneck in itself. vCPU threads and the main loop use the QEMU |
| global mutex to serialize execution of QEMU code. This mutex is necessary |
| because a lot of QEMU's code historically was not thread-safe. |
| |
| The fact that all I/O processing is done in a single main loop and that the |
| QEMU global mutex is contended by all vCPU threads and the main loop explain |
| why it is desirable to place work into IOThreads. |
| |
| The experimental virtio-blk data-plane implementation has been benchmarked and |
| shows these effects: |
| ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/linux/pdfs/KVM_Virtualized_IO_Performance_Paper.pdf |
| |
| How to program for IOThreads |
| ---------------------------- |
| The main difference between legacy code and new code that can run in an |
| IOThread is dealing explicitly with the event loop object, AioContext |
| (see include/block/aio.h). Code that only works in the main loop |
| implicitly uses the main loop's AioContext. Code that supports running |
| in IOThreads must be aware of its AioContext. |
| |
| AioContext supports the following services: |
| * File descriptor monitoring (read/write/error on POSIX hosts) |
| * Event notifiers (inter-thread signalling) |
| * Timers |
| * Bottom Halves (BH) deferred callbacks |
| |
| There are several old APIs that use the main loop AioContext: |
| * LEGACY qemu_aio_set_fd_handler() - monitor a file descriptor |
| * LEGACY qemu_aio_set_event_notifier() - monitor an event notifier |
| * LEGACY timer_new_ms() - create a timer |
| * LEGACY qemu_bh_new() - create a BH |
| * LEGACY qemu_bh_new_guarded() - create a BH with a device re-entrancy guard |
| * LEGACY qemu_aio_wait() - run an event loop iteration |
| |
| Since they implicitly work on the main loop they cannot be used in code that |
| runs in an IOThread. They might cause a crash or deadlock if called from an |
| IOThread since the QEMU global mutex is not held. |
| |
| Instead, use the AioContext functions directly (see include/block/aio.h): |
| * aio_set_fd_handler() - monitor a file descriptor |
| * aio_set_event_notifier() - monitor an event notifier |
| * aio_timer_new() - create a timer |
| * aio_bh_new() - create a BH |
| * aio_bh_new_guarded() - create a BH with a device re-entrancy guard |
| * aio_poll() - run an event loop iteration |
| |
| The qemu_bh_new_guarded/aio_bh_new_guarded APIs accept a "MemReentrancyGuard" |
| argument, which is used to check for and prevent re-entrancy problems. For |
| BHs associated with devices, the reentrancy-guard is contained in the |
| corresponding DeviceState and named "mem_reentrancy_guard". |
| |
| The AioContext can be obtained from the IOThread using |
| iothread_get_aio_context() or for the main loop using qemu_get_aio_context(). |
| Code that takes an AioContext argument works both in IOThreads or the main |
| loop, depending on which AioContext instance the caller passes in. |
| |
| How to synchronize with an IOThread |
| ----------------------------------- |
| Variables that can be accessed by multiple threads require some form of |
| synchronization such as qemu_mutex_lock(), rcu_read_lock(), etc. |
| |
| AioContext functions like aio_set_fd_handler(), aio_set_event_notifier(), |
| aio_bh_new(), and aio_timer_new() are thread-safe. They can be used to trigger |
| activity in an IOThread. |
| |
| Side note: the best way to schedule a function call across threads is to call |
| aio_bh_schedule_oneshot(). |
| |
| The main loop thread can wait synchronously for a condition using |
| AIO_WAIT_WHILE(). |
| |
| AioContext and the block layer |
| ------------------------------ |
| The AioContext originates from the QEMU block layer, even though nowadays |
| AioContext is a generic event loop that can be used by any QEMU subsystem. |
| |
| The block layer has support for AioContext integrated. Each BlockDriverState |
| is associated with an AioContext using bdrv_try_change_aio_context() and |
| bdrv_get_aio_context(). This allows block layer code to process I/O inside the |
| right AioContext. Other subsystems may wish to follow a similar approach. |
| |
| Block layer code must therefore expect to run in an IOThread and avoid using |
| old APIs that implicitly use the main loop. See the "How to program for |
| IOThreads" above for information on how to do that. |
| |
| Code running in the monitor typically needs to ensure that past |
| requests from the guest are completed. When a block device is running |
| in an IOThread, the IOThread can also process requests from the guest |
| (via ioeventfd). To achieve both objects, wrap the code between |
| bdrv_drained_begin() and bdrv_drained_end(), thus creating a "drained |
| section". |
| |
| Long-running jobs (usually in the form of coroutines) are often scheduled in |
| the BlockDriverState's AioContext. The functions |
| bdrv_add/remove_aio_context_notifier, or alternatively |
| blk_add/remove_aio_context_notifier if you use BlockBackends, can be used to |
| get a notification whenever bdrv_try_change_aio_context() moves a |
| BlockDriverState to a different AioContext. |
