----- Original Message -----
From: Daniel P. Berrange <berrange@redhat.com>
To: Peter Krempa <pkrempa@redhat.com>
Cc: Jiri Denemark <jdenemar@redhat.com>, Amador Pahim <apahim@redhat.com>, libvirt-list@redhat.com, dougsland@redhat.com
Sent: Wed, 16 Jan 2013 13:39:28 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: [libvirt] [RFC] Data in the <topology> element in the capabilities XML
On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 07:31:02PM +0100, Peter Krempa wrote:
On 01/16/13 19:11, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 05:28:57PM +0100, Peter Krempa wrote:
Hi everybody,
a while ago there was a discussion about changing the data that is
returned in the <topology> sub-element:
<capabilities>
<host>
<cpu>
<arch>x86_64</arch>
<model>SandyBridge</model>
<vendor>Intel</vendor>
<topology sockets='1' cores='2' threads='2'/>
The data provided here is as of today taken from the nodeinfo
detection code and thus is really wrong when the fallback mechanisms
are used.
To get a useful count, the user has to multiply the data by the
number of NUMA nodes in the host. With the fallback detection code
used for nodeinfo the NUMA node count used to get the CPU count
should be 1 instead of the actual number.
As Jiri proposed, I think we should change this output to separate
detection code that will not take into account NUMA nodes for this
output and will rather provide data as the "lspci" command does.
This change will make the data provided by the element standalone
and also usable in guest XMLs to mirror host's topology.
Well there are 2 parts which need to be considered here. What do we report
in the host capabilities, and how do you configure guest XML.
>From a historical compatibility pov I don't think we should be changing
the host capabilities at all. Simply document that 'sockets' is treated
as sockets-per-node everywhere, and that it is wrong in the case of
machines where an socket can internally have multiple NUMA nodes.
I'm too somewhat concerned about changing this output due to
historic reasons.
Apps should be using the separate NUMA <topology> data in the capabilities
instead of the CPU <topology> data, to get accurate CPU counts.
>From the NUMA <topology> the management apps can't tell if the CPU
is a core or a thread. For example oVirt/VDSM bases the decisions on
this information.
Then, we should add information to the NUMA topology XML to indicate
which of the child <cpu> elements are sibling cores or threads.
Perhaps add a 'socket_id' + 'core_id' attribute to every <cpu>.