Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] Disallow setting maxmem to higher value than total physical memory size

[Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@xxxxxxxx>]

 On 09/01/2010 11:53 AM, Ian Campbell wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-09-01 at 19:15 +0100, Jeremy Fitzhardinge wrote:
>> On 09/01/2010 10:56 AM, Ian Campbell wrote:
>>> On Wed, 2010-09-01 at 17:53 +0100, Jeremy Fitzhardinge wrote:
>>>> On 09/01/2010 05:44 AM, Ian Campbell wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 2010-09-01 at 13:31 +0100, Michal Novotny wrote:
>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>> this is the patch to disallow changing the maxmem value to higher value 
>>>>>> than total physical memory size since without this patch I was able to 
>>>>>> set dom0 maxmem to higher (invalid) value which is not correct.
>>>>> I think it is allowable for a domU though. Consider the scenario where
>>>>> you have two hosts, one of which has more physical RAM than the other.
>>>>> You may which to boot a domain on the smaller host, (i.e. booting
>>>>> ballooned with a current_pages suitable for the small host) and then
>>>>> migrate it to the large machine where you then want to be able to
>>>>> balloon to a value larger than was even possible on the previous
>>>>> machine.
>>>> But max-mem can change between hosts; on the small host it needn't have
>>>> a maxmem larger than the host's memory.  (The domain itself may have a
>>>> larger notion of maxmem internally, but that's separate.)
>>> It's not separate, this guest configuration item precisely informs the
>>> guest how large it can expect it's memory map to ever need to be (the
>>> setting is also called the static-max in both xend and xapi).
>> No, that is separate.  There are three values:
>>
>>    1. the domain's initial memory allocation
>>    2. the max size the domain will ever grow to
>>    3. the max size Xen will allow the domain to grow to right now
>>
>> At domain build time, the domain needs to know 1 and 2, but 3 is
>> irrelevant (so long it is larger than 1). 
>>
>> 2 can be arbitrarily large.  The domain may not need to know about 2 at
>> all if it can dynamically add memory at runtime via, say, memory
>> hotplug.  It only matters if it needs to statically allocate space in
>> its memory map for future balloonings.
> Yes, so it only matters for all PV Linux guests which currently support
> ballooning up from their initial size...

Yes,  but it doesn't relate to 3, is my point.  It only matters at the
moment of domain creation.

>> There's no need for 3 to ever be larger than the host's physical memory,
>> and it can be changed at will (if the host memory size changes due to
>> hotplug memory, save/restore or migrate).
>>
>> AFAICT, "static-max" is completely useless, at least for PV Linux
>> domains, because the kernel needs to get that value when its
>> constructing its basic memory mappings, way before it has any chance to
>> talk to xenstore.
> It's not only in xenstore, it is also in the result of the
> XENMEM_get_memory_map hypercall.

Is that separate from 3?

> Old-style PV Linux domains really do use static-max in this way. It may
> well be that there are potentially better ways for guests to implement
> this in the future but we have a deployed base of guests which work this
> way.

I specifically meant the Xenstore "static-max" value is useless. 
Getting it via hypercall is fine.

>>> For a PV guest the value is pushed down into the hypervisor by the
>>> toolstack via XENMEM_set_memory_map and this controls the memory map
>>> returned to the guest from XENMEM_get_memory_map, which in turn informs
>>> the guest's choice of maxmem value (for PV guests which can boot
>>> ballooned that is).
>> OK, I need to investigate that.  But the maxmem size for the domain
>> should be something derived from the domain's config file,
> I thought we were talking about clamping the value from the domain's
> config file, weren't we? At least that's what I thought the proposed
> patch would end up doing, which is why I was objecting.

Oh, if that's the case, then sure, don't clamp that.

    J

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