Re: [libvirt] [RFC] exporting KVM host power saving capabilities through libvirt

Hi, Linux host systems running KVM support various power management capabilities. Most of the features like DVFS and sleep states can be independently exploited by the host system itself based on system utilisation subject to policies set by the administrator. However, system-wide low power states like S3 and S4 would require external communication and interaction with the systems management stack in order to be used. The first steps in this direction would be to allow systems management stack to discover host power saving capabilities like S3 and S4 along with various other host CPU capabilities. Libvirt seems to be the main glue layer between the platform and the systems-management stack. Adding host power savings capabilities as part of libvirt host discovery mechanism seems to be one possible approach without addition of any new APIs or agents. libvirt has virConnectGetCapabilities() that would export an XML file describing the capabilities of the host platform and guest features. KVM hypervisor's capability to support S3 can be exported as a host feature in the XML as follows: <host> <uuid>94a3492f-2635-2491-8c87-8de976fad119</uuid> <cpu> <arch>x86_64</arch> <features> <<<=== New host feature fields <S3/> <S4/> </features> <model>Westmere</model> <vendor>Intel</vendor> <topology sockets='1' cores='2' threads='2'/> <feature name='rdtscp'/> <feature name='xtpr'/> <feature name='tm2'/> <feature name='est'/> <feature name='vmx'/> <<<= These are host CPU features System management software that works through libvirt, already queries this capabilities XML file and hence no new API is needed. As simple discovery mechanism can be added to libvirt as follows: