mbox series

[net-next,v1,0/3] vsock: Add flag field in the vsock address

Message ID 20201201152505.19445-1-andraprs@amazon.com (mailing list archive)
Headers show
Series vsock: Add flag field in the vsock address | expand

Message

Paraschiv, Andra-Irina Dec. 1, 2020, 3:25 p.m. UTC
vsock enables communication between virtual machines and the host they are
running on. Nested VMs can be setup to use vsock channels, as the multi
transport support has been available in the mainline since the v5.5 Linux kernel
has been released.

Implicitly, if no host->guest vsock transport is loaded, all the vsock packets
are forwarded to the host. This behavior can be used to setup communication
channels between sibling VMs that are running on the same host. One example can
be the vsock channels that can be established within AWS Nitro Enclaves
(see Documentation/virt/ne_overview.rst).

To be able to explicitly mark a connection as being used for a certain use case,
add a flag field in the vsock address data structure. The "svm_reserved1" field
has been repurposed to be the flag field. The value of the flag will then be
taken into consideration when the vsock transport is assigned.

This way can distinguish between nested VMs / local communication and sibling
VMs use cases. And can also setup one or more types of communication at the same
time.

Thank you.

Andra

---

Patch Series Changelog

The patch series is built on top of v5.10-rc6.

GitHub repo branch for the latest version of the patch series:

* https://github.com/andraprs/linux/tree/vsock-flag-sibling-comm-v1

---

Andra Paraschiv (3):
  vm_sockets: Include flag field in the vsock address data structure
  virtio_transport_common: Set sibling VMs flag on the receive path
  af_vsock: Assign the vsock transport considering the vsock address
    flag

 include/uapi/linux/vm_sockets.h         | 18 +++++++++++++++++-
 net/vmw_vsock/af_vsock.c                | 15 +++++++++++----
 net/vmw_vsock/virtio_transport_common.c |  8 ++++++++
 3 files changed, 36 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

Comments

Stefano Garzarella Dec. 1, 2020, 4:27 p.m. UTC | #1
Hi Andra,

On Tue, Dec 01, 2020 at 05:25:02PM +0200, Andra Paraschiv wrote:
>vsock enables communication between virtual machines and the host they are
>running on. Nested VMs can be setup to use vsock channels, as the multi
>transport support has been available in the mainline since the v5.5 Linux kernel
>has been released.
>
>Implicitly, if no host->guest vsock transport is loaded, all the vsock packets
>are forwarded to the host. This behavior can be used to setup communication
>channels between sibling VMs that are running on the same host. One example can
>be the vsock channels that can be established within AWS Nitro Enclaves
>(see Documentation/virt/ne_overview.rst).
>
>To be able to explicitly mark a connection as being used for a certain use case,
>add a flag field in the vsock address data structure. The "svm_reserved1" field
>has been repurposed to be the flag field. The value of the flag will then be
>taken into consideration when the vsock transport is assigned.
>
>This way can distinguish between nested VMs / local communication and sibling
>VMs use cases. And can also setup one or more types of communication at the same
>time.

Thanks to work on this, I've left you a few comments, but I think this 
is the right way to support nested and sibling communication together.

Thank you,
Stefano
Paraschiv, Andra-Irina Dec. 1, 2020, 6:02 p.m. UTC | #2
On 01/12/2020 18:27, Stefano Garzarella wrote:
>
>
> Hi Andra,
>
> On Tue, Dec 01, 2020 at 05:25:02PM +0200, Andra Paraschiv wrote:
>> vsock enables communication between virtual machines and the host 
>> they are
>> running on. Nested VMs can be setup to use vsock channels, as the multi
>> transport support has been available in the mainline since the v5.5 
>> Linux kernel
>> has been released.
>>
>> Implicitly, if no host->guest vsock transport is loaded, all the 
>> vsock packets
>> are forwarded to the host. This behavior can be used to setup 
>> communication
>> channels between sibling VMs that are running on the same host. One 
>> example can
>> be the vsock channels that can be established within AWS Nitro Enclaves
>> (see Documentation/virt/ne_overview.rst).
>>
>> To be able to explicitly mark a connection as being used for a 
>> certain use case,
>> add a flag field in the vsock address data structure. The 
>> "svm_reserved1" field
>> has been repurposed to be the flag field. The value of the flag will 
>> then be
>> taken into consideration when the vsock transport is assigned.
>>
>> This way can distinguish between nested VMs / local communication and 
>> sibling
>> VMs use cases. And can also setup one or more types of communication 
>> at the same
>> time.
>
> Thanks to work on this, I've left you a few comments, but I think this
> is the right way to support nested and sibling communication together.

Hi Stefano,

Thanks also for taking time to review and both you and Stefan for 
sharing an overview of this proposed option.

I'm going through the comments and will send out the v2 of the patch 
series as I have the changes done and validated.

Thanks,
Andra



Amazon Development Center (Romania) S.R.L. registered office: 27A Sf. Lazar Street, UBC5, floor 2, Iasi, Iasi County, 700045, Romania. Registered in Romania. Registration number J22/2621/2005.
Stefano Garzarella Dec. 2, 2020, 1:37 p.m. UTC | #3
Hi Andra,

On Tue, Dec 01, 2020 at 05:25:02PM +0200, Andra Paraschiv wrote:
>vsock enables communication between virtual machines and the host they are
>running on. Nested VMs can be setup to use vsock channels, as the multi
>transport support has been available in the mainline since the v5.5 Linux kernel
>has been released.
>
>Implicitly, if no host->guest vsock transport is loaded, all the vsock packets
>are forwarded to the host. This behavior can be used to setup communication
>channels between sibling VMs that are running on the same host. One example can
>be the vsock channels that can be established within AWS Nitro Enclaves
>(see Documentation/virt/ne_overview.rst).
>
>To be able to explicitly mark a connection as being used for a certain use case,
>add a flag field in the vsock address data structure. The "svm_reserved1" field
>has been repurposed to be the flag field. The value of the flag will then be
>taken into consideration when the vsock transport is assigned.
>
>This way can distinguish between nested VMs / local communication and sibling
>VMs use cases. And can also setup one or more types of communication at the same
>time.
>

Another thing worth mentioning is that for now it is not supported in 
vhost-vsock, since we are discarding every packet not addressed to the 
host.

What we should do would be:
- add a new IOCTL to vhost-vsock to enable sibling communication, by 
   default I'd like to leave it disabled

- allow sibling forwarding only if both guests have sibling 
   communication enabled and we should implement some kind of filtering 
   or network namespace support to allow the communication only between a 
   subset of VMs


Do you have plans to work on it?

Otherwise I put it in my to-do list and hope I have time to do it (maybe 
next month).

Thanks,
Stefano
Paraschiv, Andra-Irina Dec. 2, 2020, 4:18 p.m. UTC | #4
On 02/12/2020 15:37, Stefano Garzarella wrote:
>
> Hi Andra,
>
> On Tue, Dec 01, 2020 at 05:25:02PM +0200, Andra Paraschiv wrote:
>> vsock enables communication between virtual machines and the host 
>> they are
>> running on. Nested VMs can be setup to use vsock channels, as the multi
>> transport support has been available in the mainline since the v5.5 
>> Linux kernel
>> has been released.
>>
>> Implicitly, if no host->guest vsock transport is loaded, all the 
>> vsock packets
>> are forwarded to the host. This behavior can be used to setup 
>> communication
>> channels between sibling VMs that are running on the same host. One 
>> example can
>> be the vsock channels that can be established within AWS Nitro Enclaves
>> (see Documentation/virt/ne_overview.rst).
>>
>> To be able to explicitly mark a connection as being used for a 
>> certain use case,
>> add a flag field in the vsock address data structure. The 
>> "svm_reserved1" field
>> has been repurposed to be the flag field. The value of the flag will 
>> then be
>> taken into consideration when the vsock transport is assigned.
>>
>> This way can distinguish between nested VMs / local communication and 
>> sibling
>> VMs use cases. And can also setup one or more types of communication 
>> at the same
>> time.
>>
>
> Another thing worth mentioning is that for now it is not supported in
> vhost-vsock, since we are discarding every packet not addressed to the
> host.

Right, thanks for the follow-up.

>
> What we should do would be:
> - add a new IOCTL to vhost-vsock to enable sibling communication, by
>   default I'd like to leave it disabled
>
> - allow sibling forwarding only if both guests have sibling
>   communication enabled and we should implement some kind of filtering
>   or network namespace support to allow the communication only between a
>   subset of VMs
>
>
> Do you have plans to work on it?

Nope, not yet. But I can take some time in the second part of December / 
beginning of January for this. And we can catch up in the meantime if 
there is something blocking or more clarifications are needed to make it 
work.

Thanks,
Andra

>
>
> Otherwise I put it in my to-do list and hope I have time to do it (maybe
> next month).
>
> Thanks,
> Stefano
>




Amazon Development Center (Romania) S.R.L. registered office: 27A Sf. Lazar Street, UBC5, floor 2, Iasi, Iasi County, 700045, Romania. Registered in Romania. Registration number J22/2621/2005.
Stefano Garzarella Dec. 3, 2020, 8:51 a.m. UTC | #5
On Wed, Dec 02, 2020 at 06:18:15PM +0200, Paraschiv, Andra-Irina wrote:
>
>
>On 02/12/2020 15:37, Stefano Garzarella wrote:
>>
>>Hi Andra,
>>
>>On Tue, Dec 01, 2020 at 05:25:02PM +0200, Andra Paraschiv wrote:
>>>vsock enables communication between virtual machines and the host 
>>>they are
>>>running on. Nested VMs can be setup to use vsock channels, as the multi
>>>transport support has been available in the mainline since the 
>>>v5.5 Linux kernel
>>>has been released.
>>>
>>>Implicitly, if no host->guest vsock transport is loaded, all the 
>>>vsock packets
>>>are forwarded to the host. This behavior can be used to setup 
>>>communication
>>>channels between sibling VMs that are running on the same host. 
>>>One example can
>>>be the vsock channels that can be established within AWS Nitro Enclaves
>>>(see Documentation/virt/ne_overview.rst).
>>>
>>>To be able to explicitly mark a connection as being used for a 
>>>certain use case,
>>>add a flag field in the vsock address data structure. The 
>>>"svm_reserved1" field
>>>has been repurposed to be the flag field. The value of the flag 
>>>will then be
>>>taken into consideration when the vsock transport is assigned.
>>>
>>>This way can distinguish between nested VMs / local communication 
>>>and sibling
>>>VMs use cases. And can also setup one or more types of 
>>>communication at the same
>>>time.
>>>
>>
>>Another thing worth mentioning is that for now it is not supported in
>>vhost-vsock, since we are discarding every packet not addressed to the
>>host.
>
>Right, thanks for the follow-up.
>
>>
>>What we should do would be:
>>- add a new IOCTL to vhost-vsock to enable sibling communication, by
>>  default I'd like to leave it disabled
>>
>>- allow sibling forwarding only if both guests have sibling
>>  communication enabled and we should implement some kind of filtering
>>  or network namespace support to allow the communication only between a
>>  subset of VMs
>>
>>
>>Do you have plans to work on it?
>
>Nope, not yet. But I can take some time in the second part of December 
>/ beginning of January for this. And we can catch up in the meantime 
>if there is something blocking or more clarifications are needed to 
>make it work.
>

Good, it will be great!

Thanks,
Stefano