Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v7 4/6] Introduce irqchip type specification for KVM

[Pavel Fedin]

 Hello!

> > This patch introduces kernel_irqchip_type member in Machine class, which
> > is passed to kvm_arch_irqchip_create. Machine models which can use vGIC
> > now use it in order to supply correct GIC type for KVM capability
> > verification. The variable is defined as int in order to be
> > architecture-agnostic for potential future uses by other architectures.
> 
> This doesn't look right. The board model should just create
> the GIC device that it wants, and it should be the job of
> the GIC device itself to coordinate with the kvm.c code
> if it has to do so to pass the right kind of irqchip type.

 Unfortunately, this is how qemu is designed. kvm_irqchip_create() is called 
long before machine model's init code (machvirt_init() in our case) is called. 
So, if we want to check for the right thing, we have to know it before machine 
model actually starts to instantiate its components.
 I don't see how to change this in a more or less simple way. This routine, 
except capability testing, does one more important thing on old kernels. There 
it actually creates vGICv2 using KVM_CREATE_IRQCHIP ioctl. And, on non-ARM 
architectures, this ioctl also works, and this is the only place where creation 
is done.

Kind regards,
Pavel Fedin
Expert Engineer
Samsung Electronics Research center Russia