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authorPaolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>2020-02-28 15:35:51 +0000
committerPeter Maydell <peter.maydell@linaro.org>2020-03-06 10:04:57 +0000
commitfdeccf932d05c527b3ea57207a03392d15001b73 (patch)
tree661a5ca4999cefad7191c6fbc759ca065680a700 /docs/system/ivshmem.texi
parent5600d275d52aa822393edd8b52b397dfff8a499c (diff)
qemu-doc: split qemu-doc.texi in multiple files
In order to facilitate the reorganization of qemu-doc.texi content, as well as the conversion to rST/Sphinx, split it in multiple .texi files that are included from docs/system. The "other devices" section is renamed to ivshmem and placed last. Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Peter Maydell <peter.maydell@linaro.org> Reviewed-by: Alex Bennée <alex.bennee@linaro.org> Tested-by: Alex Bennée <alex.bennee@linaro.org> Signed-off-by: Peter Maydell <peter.maydell@linaro.org> Message-id: 20200228153619.9906-6-peter.maydell@linaro.org Message-id: 20200226113034.6741-6-pbonzini@redhat.com Reviewed-by: Peter Maydell <peter.maydell@linaro.org> Signed-off-by: Peter Maydell <peter.maydell@linaro.org>
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+@node pcsys_ivshmem
+@section Inter-VM Shared Memory device
+
+On Linux hosts, a shared memory device is available. The basic syntax
+is:
+
+@example
+@value{qemu_system_x86} -device ivshmem-plain,memdev=@var{hostmem}
+@end example
+
+where @var{hostmem} names a host memory backend. For a POSIX shared
+memory backend, use something like
+
+@example
+-object memory-backend-file,size=1M,share,mem-path=/dev/shm/ivshmem,id=@var{hostmem}
+@end example
+
+If desired, interrupts can be sent between guest VMs accessing the same shared
+memory region. Interrupt support requires using a shared memory server and
+using a chardev socket to connect to it. The code for the shared memory server
+is qemu.git/contrib/ivshmem-server. An example syntax when using the shared
+memory server is:
+
+@example
+# First start the ivshmem server once and for all
+ivshmem-server -p @var{pidfile} -S @var{path} -m @var{shm-name} -l @var{shm-size} -n @var{vectors}
+
+# Then start your qemu instances with matching arguments
+@value{qemu_system_x86} -device ivshmem-doorbell,vectors=@var{vectors},chardev=@var{id}
+ -chardev socket,path=@var{path},id=@var{id}
+@end example
+
+When using the server, the guest will be assigned a VM ID (>=0) that allows guests
+using the same server to communicate via interrupts. Guests can read their
+VM ID from a device register (see ivshmem-spec.txt).
+
+@subsection Migration with ivshmem
+
+With device property @option{master=on}, the guest will copy the shared
+memory on migration to the destination host. With @option{master=off},
+the guest will not be able to migrate with the device attached. In the
+latter case, the device should be detached and then reattached after
+migration using the PCI hotplug support.
+
+At most one of the devices sharing the same memory can be master. The
+master must complete migration before you plug back the other devices.
+
+@subsection ivshmem and hugepages
+
+Instead of specifying the <shm size> using POSIX shm, you may specify
+a memory backend that has hugepage support:
+
+@example
+@value{qemu_system_x86} -object memory-backend-file,size=1G,mem-path=/dev/hugepages/my-shmem-file,share,id=mb1
+ -device ivshmem-plain,memdev=mb1
+@end example
+
+ivshmem-server also supports hugepages mount points with the
+@option{-m} memory path argument.
+