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authorrusty <rusty@0c8fb4dd-22a2-4bb5-bc14-6c75a5f43652>2014-02-26 03:18:28 +0000
committerrusty <rusty@0c8fb4dd-22a2-4bb5-bc14-6c75a5f43652>2014-02-26 03:18:28 +0000
commit2cea64ecf8a2183de439f02835c91622eaa27632 (patch)
treed29e043633447e941e0f36c4656a5681fda3b580 /content.tex
parent4aeb418a4ccb0ea10b2964de54467f1dc17669c4 (diff)
Feedback: move new device design section to Appendix.
It's non-normative. Signed-off-by: Rusty Russell <rusty@au1.ibm.com> git-svn-id: https://tools.oasis-open.org/version-control/svn/virtio@259 0c8fb4dd-22a2-4bb5-bc14-6c75a5f43652
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@@ -4356,70 +4356,3 @@ Legacy or transitional devices may offer the following:
for experimental early versions of virtio which did not perform
correct feature negotiation, and should not be used.
\end{description}
-
-\chapter{Creating New Device Types}\label{sec:Creating New Device Types}
-
-Various considerations are necessary when creating a new device
-type.
-
-\section{How Many Virtqueues?}\label{sec:Creating New Device Types / How Many Virtqueues?}
-
-It is possible that a very simple device will operate entirely
-through its device configuration space, but most will need at least one
-virtqueue in which it will place requests. A device with both
-input and output (eg. console and network devices described here)
-need two queues: one which the driver fills with buffers to
-receive input, and one which the driver places buffers to
-transmit output.
-
-\section{What Device Configuration Space Layout?}\label{sec:Creating New Device Types / What Device Configuration Space Layout?}
-
-Device configuration space should only be used for initialization-time
-parameters. It is a limited resource with no synchronization between
-field written by the driver, so for most uses it is better to use a virtqueue to update
-configuration information (the network device does this for filtering,
-otherwise the table in the config space could potentially be very
-large).
-
-Devices must not assume that configuration fields over 32 bits wide
-are atomically writable by the driver.
-
-\section{What Device Number?}\label{sec:Creating New Device Types / What Device Number?}
-
-Device numbers can be reserved by the OASIS committee: email
-virtio-dev@lists.oasis-open.org to secure a unique one.
-
-Meanwhile for experimental drivers, use 65535 and work backwards.
-
-\section{How many MSI-X vectors? (for PCI)}\label{sec:Creating New Device Types / How many MSI-X vectors? (for PCI)}
-
-Using the optional MSI-X capability devices can speed up
-interrupt processing by removing the need to read ISR Status
-register by guest driver (which might be an expensive operation),
-reducing interrupt sharing between devices and queues within the
-device, and handling interrupts from multiple CPUs. However, some
-systems impose a limit (which might be as low as 256) on the
-total number of MSI-X vectors that can be allocated to all
-devices. Devices and/or drivers should take this into
-account, limiting the number of vectors used unless the device is
-expected to cause a high volume of interrupts. Devices can
-control the number of vectors used by limiting the MSI-X Table
-Size or not presenting MSI-X capability in PCI configuration
-space. Drivers can control this by mapping events to as small
-number of vectors as possible, or disabling MSI-X capability
-altogether.
-
-\section{Device Improvements}\label{sec:Creating New Device Types / Device Improvements}
-
-Any change to device configuration space, or new virtqueues, or
-behavioural changes, should be indicated by negotiation of a new
-feature bit. This establishes clarity\footnote{Even if it does mean documenting design or implementation
-mistakes!
-} and avoids future expansion problems.
-
-Clusters of functionality which are always implemented together
-can use a single bit, but if one feature makes sense without the
-others they should not be gratuitously grouped together to
-conserve feature bits.
-
-