From: Laszlo Ersek <ler...@redhat.com> (1) The virtio-1.2 specification <http://docs.oasis-open.org/virtio/virtio/v1.2/virtio-v1.2.html> writes:
> 3 General Initialization And Device Operation > 3.1 Device Initialization > 3.1.1 Driver Requirements: Device Initialization > > [...] > > 7. Perform device-specific setup, including discovery of virtqueues for > the device, optional per-bus setup, reading and possibly writing the > device’s virtio configuration space, and population of virtqueues. > > 8. Set the DRIVER_OK status bit. At this point the device is “live”. and > 4 Virtio Transport Options > 4.1 Virtio Over PCI Bus > 4.1.4 Virtio Structure PCI Capabilities > 4.1.4.3 Common configuration structure layout > 4.1.4.3.2 Driver Requirements: Common configuration structure layout > > [...] > > The driver MUST configure the other virtqueue fields before enabling the > virtqueue with queue_enable. > > [...] (The same statements are present in virtio-1.0 identically, at <http://docs.oasis-open.org/virtio/virtio/v1.0/virtio-v1.0.html>.) These together mean that the following sub-sequence of steps is valid for a virtio-1.0 guest driver: (1.1) set "queue_enable" for the needed queues as the final part of device initialization step (7), (1.2) set DRIVER_OK in step (8), (1.3) immediately start sending virtio requests to the device. (2) When vhost-user is enabled, and the VHOST_USER_F_PROTOCOL_FEATURES special virtio feature is negotiated, then virtio rings start in disabled state, according to <https://qemu-project.gitlab.io/qemu/interop/vhost-user.html#ring-states>. In this case, explicit VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE messages are needed for enabling vrings. Therefore setting "queue_enable" from the guest (1.1) is a *control plane* operation, which travels from the guest through QEMU to the vhost-user backend, using a unix domain socket. Whereas sending a virtio request (1.3) is a *data plane* operation, which evades QEMU -- it travels from guest to the vhost-user backend via eventfd. This means that steps (1.1) and (1.3) travel through different channels, and their relative order can be reversed, as perceived by the vhost-user backend. That's exactly what happens when OVMF's virtiofs driver (VirtioFsDxe) runs against the Rust-language virtiofsd version 1.7.2. (Which uses version 0.10.1 of the vhost-user-backend crate, and version 0.8.1 of the vhost crate.) Namely, when VirtioFsDxe binds a virtiofs device, it goes through the device initialization steps (i.e., control plane operations), and immediately sends a FUSE_INIT request too (i.e., performs a data plane operation). In the Rust-language virtiofsd, this creates a race between two components that run *concurrently*, i.e., in different threads or processes: - Control plane, handling vhost-user protocol messages: The "VhostUserSlaveReqHandlerMut::set_vring_enable" method [crates/vhost-user-backend/src/handler.rs] handles VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE messages, and updates each vring's "enabled" flag according to the message processed. - Data plane, handling virtio / FUSE requests: The "VringEpollHandler::handle_event" method [crates/vhost-user-backend/src/event_loop.rs] handles the incoming virtio / FUSE request, consuming the virtio kick at the same time. If the vring's "enabled" flag is set, the virtio / FUSE request is processed genuinely. If the vring's "enabled" flag is clear, then the virtio / FUSE request is discarded. Note that OVMF enables the queue *first*, and sends FUSE_INIT *second*. However, if the data plane processor in virtiofsd wins the race, then it sees the FUSE_INIT *before* the control plane processor took notice of VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE and green-lit the queue for the data plane processor. Therefore the latter drops FUSE_INIT on the floor, and goes back to waiting for further virtio / FUSE requests with epoll_wait. Meanwhile OVMF is stuck waiting for the FUSET_INIT response -- a deadlock. The deadlock is not deterministic. OVMF hangs infrequently during first boot. However, OVMF hangs almost certainly during reboots from the UEFI shell. The race can be "reliably masked" by inserting a very small delay -- a single debug message -- at the top of "VringEpollHandler::handle_event", i.e., just before the data plane processor checks the "enabled" field of the vring. That delay suffices for the control plane processor to act upon VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE. We can deterministically prevent the race in QEMU, by blocking OVMF inside step (1.1) -- i.e., in the write to the "queue_enable" register -- until VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE actually *completes*. That way OVMF's VCPU cannot advance to the FUSE_INIT submission before virtiofsd's control plane processor takes notice of the queue being enabled. Wait for VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE completion by: - setting the NEED_REPLY flag on VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE, and waiting for the reply, if the VHOST_USER_PROTOCOL_F_REPLY_ACK vhost-user feature has been negotiated, or - performing a separate VHOST_USER_GET_FEATURES *exchange*, which requires a backend response regardless of VHOST_USER_PROTOCOL_F_REPLY_ACK. Cc: "Michael S. Tsirkin" <m...@redhat.com> (supporter:vhost) Cc: Eugenio Perez Martin <epere...@redhat.com> Cc: German Maglione <gmagli...@redhat.com> Cc: Liu Jiang <ge...@linux.alibaba.com> Cc: Sergio Lopez Pascual <s...@redhat.com> Cc: Stefano Garzarella <sgarz...@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Laszlo Ersek <ler...@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Stefano Garzarella <sgarz...@redhat.com> Message-Id: <20230830134055.106812-8-ler...@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Michael S. Tsirkin <m...@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Michael S. Tsirkin <m...@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Eugenio Pérez <epere...@redhat.com> --- hw/virtio/vhost-user.c | 16 +++++++++++++++- 1 file changed, 15 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/hw/virtio/vhost-user.c b/hw/virtio/vhost-user.c index ae0734d461..eb983ae295 100644 --- a/hw/virtio/vhost-user.c +++ b/hw/virtio/vhost-user.c @@ -1214,7 +1214,21 @@ static int vhost_user_set_vring_enable(struct vhost_dev *dev, int enable) .num = enable, }; - ret = vhost_set_vring(dev, VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE, &state, false); + /* + * SET_VRING_ENABLE travels from guest to QEMU to vhost-user backend / + * control plane thread via unix domain socket. Virtio requests travel + * from guest to vhost-user backend / data plane thread via eventfd. + * Even if the guest enables the ring first, and pushes its first virtio + * request second (conforming to the virtio spec), the data plane thread + * in the backend may see the virtio request before the control plane + * thread sees the queue enablement. This causes (in fact, requires) the + * data plane thread to discard the virtio request (it arrived on a + * seemingly disabled queue). To prevent this out-of-order delivery, + * don't let the guest proceed to pushing the virtio request until the + * backend control plane acknowledges enabling the queue -- IOW, pass + * wait_for_reply=true below. + */ + ret = vhost_set_vring(dev, VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE, &state, true); if (ret < 0) { /* * Restoring the previous state is likely infeasible, as well as -- MST
