On Fri, Jul 22, 2022 at 01:49:21PM +0200, Laszlo Ersek wrote:
> On 07/22/22 11:50, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> > On Fri, Jul 22, 2022 at 10:42:48AM +0100, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> >> On Fri, Jul 22, 2022 at 10:34:44AM +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> >>> Sorry for the delayed response to this.  I see you've posted an
> >>> updated patch, so this is just a bit of FYI.
> >>>
> >>> I originally added CPU modelling in commit 11505e4b84 (March 2017):
> >>>
> >>> https://github.com/libguestfs/virt-v2v/commit/11505e4b84ce8d7eda4e2a275fdcecc5f2a3288d
> >>>
> >>> What we were actually trying to achieve here was to preserve the CPU
> >>> topology.  I believe the request came from Bill Helgerson who was
> >>> working on v2v in the proto-IMS product, and was working a lot with
> >>> customers.
> >>>
> >>> You can see in the code before the patch is applied we only modelled
> >>> the number of vCPUs.  Afterwards we have:
> >>>
> >>>  * number of vCPUs
> >>>  * vendor (eg. AMD)
> >>>  * model (eg. EPYC)
> >>>  * sockets
> >>>  * cores per socket
> >>>  * threads per core
> >>>
> >>> I think here only the first 1 and last 3 (#vCPUS, topology) are really
> >>> important.  I believe I added the vendor and model just because they
> >>> were there, without necessarily thinking too deeply about the
> >>> implications.
> >>>
> >>> As you covered in your email, what is the real meaning of converting a
> >>> source guest using eg AMD/EPYC with virt-v2v to some target?  Does it
> >>> mean that the target must be able to emulate all EPYC feature (likely
> >>> impossible if the target is Intel)?  I would say it's not that
> >>> important.  This isn't live migration, and almost all guests can be
> >>> booted interchangably on different x86_64 hardware.
> >>>
> >>> Is topology important?  I would say yes, or at least it's much more
> >>> important than vendor/model.  Workloads may expect not just a number
> >>> of vCPUs, but a particular layout, especially the larger and more
> >>> complex ones.
> >>
> >> In terms of topology, if you have NOT set pCPU:vCPU 1:1 pinning,
> >> then NEVER set threads > 1. There's a choice of sockets vs cores
> >> for non-pinned scenario, and generally I'd recommends 'cores'
> >> always because high core counts are common in real world, and
> >> 'sockets' mostly maxes out at 2/4 in real world (ignoring wierd
> >> high end hardware), also some OS restrict you based on sockets,
> >> but not cores. So IMHO the only compelling reason to use
> >> sockets > 1 is you want to have virtual NUMA topology, but
> >> even that's dubious unless pinning.
> >>
> >> If you have set pCPU:vCPU 1:1 pinning, then set topology to
> >> try to match what you've pinned to.
> >>
> >>> So ... my question now is, should we simply remove the vendor and
> >>> model fields completely?
> >>
> >> Removing 'model' is not a good idea, as you'll get the default
> >> CPU model.
> >>
> >> If you don't have to pick a particular CPU, then IMHO either
> >> use host-model or host-passthrough depending on whether you
> >> think live migration is important or not.
> > 
> > I mean remove them from virt-v2v's internal source model [confusing
> > terminology here - modelling the source != CPU model].  On targets
> > we'd choose something like cpu=host-model to get the best possible
> > migratable CPU.
> > 
> > The point is we're not copying the Intel / Nehalem, AMD / EPYC etc of
> > the guest from the source to the destination hypervisor.
> 
> I think producing host-passthrough indiscriminately on output (which we
> already do in the particular case only when the source does not specify
> a model and we know an OS does not run on qemu64) would be best. I don't
> think it would be a very difficult patch or patch set, but I dread the
> testing of it. :/
> 
> Let me go ahead and commit v2; and let's remember this discussion for
> the next time a CPU model related problem pops up. If switching to
> host-passthrough solves that problem then, we should implement it then.
> (And then ask QE to test it as comprehensively as they can...)

Remember, 'host-passthrough' is only possible with KVM, not TCG,
'host-model' works with both. If you have newish libvirt + QEMU
you can use 'maximum' which is equiv to 'host-pasthrough' on
KVM, or "all implemented features" on TCG.

With regards,
Daniel
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