Re: [libvirt] [PATCH] qemu: Remove maximum cpu limit when setting processor count using the API

On 04/05/13 10:37, Daniel P. Berrange wrote: >On Fri, Apr 05, 2013 at 12:11:31AM +0200, Peter Krempa wrote: >>When setting processor count for a domain using the API libvirt enforced >>a maximum processor count, while it isn't enforced when taking the XML path. >> >>This patch removes the check to match the API. > >Do you mean s/API/XML/ here ? Indeed. > >I'm not sure whether removing this check is a good idea. Should we not >instead make the guest startup code also validate max CPU count when >generating the CLI args ? Well, I don't think so. Adding the check to the CLI generator would introduce more problems than it would solve: 1) chicken and egg problem: we can't use the new QMP query-cpu-max command as we need a running qemu for this and in order to start a qemu you already need to provide the desired number of cpus: $ qemu-system-x86_64 -smp 256 -M pc -S --monitor stdio Unsupported number of maxcpus $ qemu-system-x86_64 -smp 255 -M pc -S --monitor stdio QEMU 1.4.50 monitor - type 'help' for more information (qemu) info cpu_max Maximum number of CPUs is 255 (qemu) quit $ 2) qemuGetMaxVCPUs() is obsolete and doesn't report apropriate numbers. For non-kvm guests this would limit us to 16 cpus per guest and for kvm guests it depends if the kernel supports the KVM_CAP_MAX_VCPUS ioctl (introduced in linux-3.2) and reports a correct value or we return the recommended value of processors (KVM_CAP_NR_VCPUS ioctl) that is hardcoded to 160. If neither of the ioctls is supported, 4 will be returned as the maximum count (according to kernel docs). qemuGetMaxVCPUs(virConnectPtr conn ATTRIBUTE_UNUSED, const char *type) { if (!type) return 16; if (STRCASEEQ(type, "qemu")) return 16; if (STRCASEEQ(type, "kvm")) return kvmGetMaxVCPUs(); if (STRCASEEQ(type, "kqemu")) return 1; ... I don't see a way how we could reliably determine the maximum for a guest before we start it and it doesn't make sense to start it to find out. I think we should just remove the check and let qemu handle the limit.