Some operating systems want to use IOMMU to implement various features (e.g
VFIO) or DMA protection.
This patch introduce a proposal for IOMMU paravirtualization for Dom0.

Signed-off-by Teddy Astie <teddy.astie@vates.tech>
---
Changes in v4:
* added init and remote_op commands
---
 docs/designs/pv-iommu.md | 116 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 116 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 docs/designs/pv-iommu.md

diff --git a/docs/designs/pv-iommu.md b/docs/designs/pv-iommu.md
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+# IOMMU paravirtualization for Dom0
+
+Status: Experimental
+
+# Background
+
+By default, Xen only uses the IOMMU for itself, either to make device adress
+space coherent with guest adress space (x86 HVM/PVH) or to prevent devices
+from doing DMA outside it's expected memory regions including the hypervisor
+(x86 PV).
+
+A limitation is that guests (especially privildged ones) may want to use
+IOMMU hardware in order to implement features such as DMA protection and
+VFIO [1] as IOMMU functionality is not available outside of the hypervisor
+currently.
+
+[1] VFIO - "Virtual Function I/O" - https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/driver-api/vfio.html
+
+# Design
+
+The operating system may want to have access to various IOMMU features such as
+context management and DMA remapping. We can create a new hypercall that allows
+the guest to have access to a new paravirtualized IOMMU interface.
+
+This feature is only meant to be available for the Dom0, as DomU have some
+emulated devices that can't be managed on Xen side and are not hardware, we
+can't rely on the hardware IOMMU to enforce DMA remapping.
+
+This interface is exposed under the `iommu_op` hypercall.
+
+In addition, Xen domains are modified in order to allow existence of several
+IOMMU context including a default one that implement default behavior (e.g
+hardware assisted paging) and can't be modified by guest. DomU cannot have
+contexts, and therefore act as if they only have the default domain.
+
+Each IOMMU context within a Xen domain is identified using a domain-specific
+context number that is used in the Xen IOMMU subsystem and the hypercall
+interface.
+
+The number of IOMMU context a domain is specified by either the toolstack or
+the domain itself.
+
+# IOMMU operations
+
+## Initialize PV-IOMMU
+
+Initialize PV-IOMMU for the domain.
+It can only be called once.
+
+## Alloc context
+
+Create a new IOMMU context for the guest and return the context number to the
+guest.
+Fail if the IOMMU context limit of the guest is reached.
+
+A flag can be specified to create a identity mapping.
+
+## Free context
+
+Destroy a IOMMU context created previously.
+It is not possible to free the default context.
+
+Reattach context devices to default context if specified by the guest.
+
+Fail if there is a device in the context and reattach-to-default flag is not
+specified.
+
+## Reattach device
+
+Reattach a device to another IOMMU context (including the default one).
+The target IOMMU context number must be valid and the context allocated.
+
+The guest needs to specify a PCI SBDF of a device he has access to.
+
+## Map/unmap page
+
+Map/unmap a page on a context.
+The guest needs to specify a gfn and target dfn to map.
+
+Refuse to create the mapping if one already exist for the same dfn.
+
+## Lookup page
+
+Get the gfn mapped by a specific dfn.
+
+## Remote command
+
+Make a PV-IOMMU operation on behalf of another domain.
+Especially useful for implementing IOMMU emulation (e.g using QEMU)
+or initializing PV-IOMMU with enforced limits.
+
+# Implementation considerations
+
+## Hypercall batching
+
+In order to prevent unneeded hypercalls and IOMMU flushing, it is advisable to
+be able to batch some critical IOMMU operations (e.g map/unmap multiple pages).
+
+## Hardware without IOMMU support
+
+Operating system needs to be aware on PV-IOMMU capability, and whether it is
+able to make contexts. However, some operating system may critically fail in
+case they are able to make a new IOMMU context. Which is supposed to happen
+if no IOMMU hardware is available.
+
+The hypercall interface needs a interface to advertise the ability to create
+and manage IOMMU contexts including the amount of context the guest is able
+to use. Using these informations, the Dom0 may decide whether to use or not
+the PV-IOMMU interface.
+
+## Page pool for contexts
+
+In order to prevent unexpected starving on the hypervisor memory with a
+buggy Dom0. We can preallocate the pages the contexts will use and make
+map/unmap use these pages instead of allocating them dynamically.
+
-- 
2.45.2



Teddy Astie | Vates XCP-ng Developer

XCP-ng & Xen Orchestra - Vates solutions

web: https://vates.tech