[PATCH] vfio: do not coalesce DMA mappings

[Gupta, Nipun]

On 7/4/2023 8:41 PM, Ding, Xuan wrote:
> Hi Nipun,
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Gupta, Nipun <nipun.gupta at amd.com>
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 4, 2023 5:23 PM
>> To: Ding, Xuan <xuan.ding at intel.com>; dev at dpdk.org; thomas at monjalon.net;
>> Burakov, Anatoly <anatoly.burakov at intel.com>; Yigit, Ferruh
>> <Ferruh.Yigit at amd.com>; David Marchand <david.marchand at redhat.com>
>> Cc: Agarwal, Nikhil <nikhil.agarwal at amd.com>; He, Xingguang
>> <xingguang.he at intel.com>; Ling, WeiX <weix.ling at intel.com>
>> Subject: Re: [PATCH] vfio: do not coalesce DMA mappings
>>
>> Hi Xuan,
>>
>> On 7/4/2023 1:36 PM, Ding, Xuan wrote:
>>> Hi Nipun,
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Gupta, Nipun <Nipun.Gupta at amd.com>
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, July 4, 2023 2:54 PM
>>>> To: Ding, Xuan <xuan.ding at intel.com>; dev at dpdk.org;
>>>> thomas at monjalon.net; Burakov, Anatoly <anatoly.burakov at intel.com>;
>>>> Yigit, Ferruh <Ferruh.Yigit at amd.com>; David Marchand
>>>> <david.marchand at redhat.com>
>>>> Cc: Agarwal, Nikhil <nikhil.agarwal at amd.com>; He, Xingguang
>>>> <xingguang.he at intel.com>; Ling, WeiX <weix.ling at intel.com>
>>>> Subject: RE: [PATCH] vfio: do not coalesce DMA mappings
>>>>
>>>> Hi Xuan,
>>>>
>>>> Please see inline.
>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: Ding, Xuan <xuan.ding at intel.com>
>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, July 4, 2023 10:43 AM
>>>>> To: Gupta, Nipun <Nipun.Gupta at amd.com>; dev at dpdk.org;
>>>>> thomas at monjalon.net; Burakov, Anatoly <anatoly.burakov at intel.com>;
>>>>> Yigit, Ferruh <Ferruh.Yigit at amd.com>
>>>>> Cc: Agarwal, Nikhil <nikhil.agarwal at amd.com>; He, Xingguang
>>>>> <xingguang.he at intel.com>; Ling, WeiX <weix.ling at intel.com>
>>>>> Subject: RE: [PATCH] vfio: do not coalesce DMA mappings
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi Nipun,
>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: Ding, Xuan
>>>>>> Sent: Friday, June 30, 2023 1:58 PM
>>>>>> To: Nipun Gupta <nipun.gupta at amd.com>; dev at dpdk.org;
>>>>>> thomas at monjalon.net; Burakov, Anatoly <anatoly.burakov at intel.com>;
>>>>>> ferruh.yigit at amd.com
>>>>>> Cc: nikhil.agarwal at amd.com; He, Xingguang <xingguang.he at intel.com>;
>>>>>> Ling, WeiX <weix.ling at intel.com>
>>>>>> Subject: RE: [PATCH] vfio: do not coalesce DMA mappings
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Nipun,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Replies are inline.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>> From: Nipun Gupta <nipun.gupta at amd.com>
>>>>>>> Sent: Friday, June 30, 2023 9:46 AM
>>>>>>> To: Ding, Xuan <xuan.ding at intel.com>; dev at dpdk.org;
>>>>>>> thomas at monjalon.net; Burakov, Anatoly <anatoly.burakov at intel.com>;
>>>>>>> ferruh.yigit at amd.com
>>>>>>> Cc: nikhil.agarwal at amd.com; He, Xingguang
>>>>>>> <xingguang.he at intel.com>; Ling, WeiX <weix.ling at intel.com>
>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [PATCH] vfio: do not coalesce DMA mappings
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi Xuan,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks for pointing out the issue and figuring out the patch which
>>>>>>> introduced this. If you have answers to below queries, please let me
>> know:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Is there any other test cases which tests "--no-huge" which pass?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, there are test cases adding "--no-huge" option to validate 4k
>>>>>> page size in async vhost.
>>>>>> Actually, the page size is decided by front-end, so I think this
>>>>>> case can be removed.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Previously, testpmd can start with "--no-huge" options (not sure if
>>>>>> there are test cases).
>>>>>> Cmd: ./build/app/dpdk-testpmd -l 5-6 -n 4 --no-huge -m 1024 -- -i
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Also, if we change the "-m" option to provide lower memory, does
>>>>>>> the test pass?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "-m" option is also added and does not work.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> When you mention too many pages exceed the capability of IOMMU,
>>>>>>> you are referring to HW capability to create multiple pages? Here
>>>>>>> it seems in case of 4K page size we need 256K pages which is
>>>>>>> limiting the
>>>> capacity?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, this is the result of my initial debugging.
>>>>>> The direct impact is that this kind of testpmd cases cannot start now.
>>>>>> If this is expected, I think we can close this defect and ignore
>>>>>> the "--no-
>>>> huge"
>>>>>> option when start.
>>>>>
>>>>> Any insights? Should we just ignore the "--no-huge" option and close
>>>>> this
>>>> defect?
>>>>> Now we did this as a workaround. Seems no one uses the "--no-huge"
>>>>> option in testpmd now.
>>>>
>>>> VFIO supports dma_entry_limit as a module parameter, which has a
>>>> default value of U16_MAX i.e. 64K, most likely which is limiting
>>>> creation of 256K entries for 4K pages here. This can be modified while
>> inserting vfio module:
>>>>           modprobe vfio_iommu_type1 dma_entry_limit=1000000
>>>
>>> Thanks for your suggestion. I tried it on ubuntu 22.04 but it does not work.
>>> The reason I think is vfio-pci is build-in in kernel driver (since 20.04) and it
>> does not support dynamic insmod/rmmod.
>>>
>>> Does this command need to rmmod vfio first and then modprobe again?
>>>
>>
>> If it is inserted as a module then you can remove using rmmod and then
>> modprobe again with the dma_entry_limit parameter. Also note,
>> vfio_iommu_type1 is the module which is limiting the entries to 64K, so this
>> module needs to be inserted again providing the dma_entry_limit module
>> param.
>>
>> In case the module is built-in you can provide via kernel command line
>> parameter (ref:
>> https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.12/admin-guide/kernel-
>> parameters.html).
>> As per this ref document, "vfio_iommu_type1.dma_entry_limit=1000000"
>> should be used in the bootargs to set the module parameters.
>>
>> FYI.. DPDK documentation also mentions the limitation at:
>> https://doc.dpdk.org/guides/linux_gsg/linux_drivers.html
> 
> Thanks for pointing out these references.
> 
> Add supplement for configuring build-in vfio module:
> Except adding " vfio_iommu_type1.dma_entry_limit=1000000" in bootargs,
> we can use kernel command line: "echo 1000000 > /sys/module/vfio_iommu_type1/parameters/dma_entry_limit".
> 
> Both methods works, thanks again.

Good to know this works!

> 
> Regards,
> Xuan
> 
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Nipun