[v3,7/7] vhost-user: call VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE synchronously

Commit Message

Laszlo Ersek Oct. 2, 2023, 8:32 p.m. UTC

(1) The virtio-1.2 specification
<http://docs.oasis-open.org/virtio/virtio/v1.2/virtio-v1.2.html> writes:

> 3     General Initialization And Device Operation
> 3.1   Device Initialization
> 3.1.1 Driver Requirements: Device Initialization
>
> [...]
>
> 7. Perform device-specific setup, including discovery of virtqueues for
>    the device, optional per-bus setup, reading and possibly writing the
>    device’s virtio configuration space, and population of virtqueues.
>
> 8. Set the DRIVER_OK status bit. At this point the device is “live”.

and

> 4         Virtio Transport Options
> 4.1       Virtio Over PCI Bus
> 4.1.4     Virtio Structure PCI Capabilities
> 4.1.4.3   Common configuration structure layout
> 4.1.4.3.2 Driver Requirements: Common configuration structure layout
>
> [...]
>
> The driver MUST configure the other virtqueue fields before enabling the
> virtqueue with queue_enable.
>
> [...]

(The same statements are present in virtio-1.0 identically, at
<http://docs.oasis-open.org/virtio/virtio/v1.0/virtio-v1.0.html>.)

These together mean that the following sub-sequence of steps is valid for
a virtio-1.0 guest driver:

(1.1) set "queue_enable" for the needed queues as the final part of device
initialization step (7),

(1.2) set DRIVER_OK in step (8),

(1.3) immediately start sending virtio requests to the device.

(2) When vhost-user is enabled, and the VHOST_USER_F_PROTOCOL_FEATURES
special virtio feature is negotiated, then virtio rings start in disabled
state, according to
<https://qemu-project.gitlab.io/qemu/interop/vhost-user.html#ring-states>.
In this case, explicit VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE messages are needed for
enabling vrings.

Therefore setting "queue_enable" from the guest (1.1) -- which is
technically "buffered" on the QEMU side until the guest sets DRIVER_OK
(1.2) -- is a *control plane* operation, which -- after (1.2) -- travels
from the guest through QEMU to the vhost-user backend, using a unix domain
socket.

Whereas sending a virtio request (1.3) is a *data plane* operation, which
evades QEMU -- it travels from guest to the vhost-user backend via
eventfd.

This means that operations ((1.1) + (1.2)) and (1.3) travel through
different channels, and their relative order can be reversed, as perceived
by the vhost-user backend.

That's exactly what happens when OVMF's virtiofs driver (VirtioFsDxe) runs
against the Rust-language virtiofsd version 1.7.2. (Which uses version
0.10.1 of the vhost-user-backend crate, and version 0.8.1 of the vhost
crate.)

Namely, when VirtioFsDxe binds a virtiofs device, it goes through the
device initialization steps (i.e., control plane operations), and
immediately sends a FUSE_INIT request too (i.e., performs a data plane
operation). In the Rust-language virtiofsd, this creates a race between
two components that run *concurrently*, i.e., in different threads or
processes:

- Control plane, handling vhost-user protocol messages:

  The "VhostUserSlaveReqHandlerMut::set_vring_enable" method
  [crates/vhost-user-backend/src/handler.rs] handles
  VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE messages, and updates each vring's "enabled"
  flag according to the message processed.

- Data plane, handling virtio / FUSE requests:

  The "VringEpollHandler::handle_event" method
  [crates/vhost-user-backend/src/event_loop.rs] handles the incoming
  virtio / FUSE request, consuming the virtio kick at the same time. If
  the vring's "enabled" flag is set, the virtio / FUSE request is
  processed genuinely. If the vring's "enabled" flag is clear, then the
  virtio / FUSE request is discarded.

Note that OVMF enables the queue *first*, and sends FUSE_INIT *second*.
However, if the data plane processor in virtiofsd wins the race, then it
sees the FUSE_INIT *before* the control plane processor took notice of
VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE and green-lit the queue for the data plane
processor. Therefore the latter drops FUSE_INIT on the floor, and goes
back to waiting for further virtio / FUSE requests with epoll_wait.
Meanwhile OVMF is stuck waiting for the FUSET_INIT response -- a deadlock.

The deadlock is not deterministic. OVMF hangs infrequently during first
boot. However, OVMF hangs almost certainly during reboots from the UEFI
shell.

The race can be "reliably masked" by inserting a very small delay -- a
single debug message -- at the top of "VringEpollHandler::handle_event",
i.e., just before the data plane processor checks the "enabled" field of
the vring. That delay suffices for the control plane processor to act upon
VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE.

We can deterministically prevent the race in QEMU, by blocking OVMF inside
step (1.2) -- i.e., in the write to the device status register that
"unleashes" queue enablement -- until VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE actually
*completes*. That way OVMF's VCPU cannot advance to the FUSE_INIT
submission before virtiofsd's control plane processor takes notice of the
queue being enabled.

Wait for VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE completion by:

- setting the NEED_REPLY flag on VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE, and waiting
  for the reply, if the VHOST_USER_PROTOCOL_F_REPLY_ACK vhost-user feature
  has been negotiated, or

- performing a separate VHOST_USER_GET_FEATURES *exchange*, which requires
  a backend response regardless of VHOST_USER_PROTOCOL_F_REPLY_ACK.

Cc: "Michael S. Tsirkin" <[e-mail]> (supporter:vhost)
Cc: Eugenio Perez Martin <[e-mail]>
Cc: German Maglione <[e-mail]>
Cc: Liu Jiang <[e-mail]>
Cc: Sergio Lopez Pascual <[e-mail]>
Cc: Stefano Garzarella <[e-mail]>
Signed-off-by: Laszlo Ersek <[e-mail]>
Reviewed-by: Stefano Garzarella <[e-mail]>
Tested-by: Albert Esteve <[e-mail]>
[[e-mail]: work Eugenio's explanation into the commit message,
 about QEMU containing step (1.1) until step (1.2)]
Reviewed-by: Eugenio Pérez <[e-mail]>
---

Notes:
    v3:
    
    - pick up R-b from Eugenio, T-b from Albert
    
    - clarify commit message (also give permanent credit for the
      clarification; I feel the change is important enough) [Eugenio]
    
    v2:
    
    - pick up R-b from Stefano
    
    - update virtio spec reference from 1.0 to 1.2 (also keep the 1.0 ref)
      in the commit message; re-check the quotes / section headers [Stefano]
    
    - summarize commit message in code comment [Stefano]

 hw/virtio/vhost-user.c | 16 +++++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 15 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

Patch

diff --git a/hw/virtio/vhost-user.c b/hw/virtio/vhost-user.c
index 18e15a9bb359..41842eb023b5 100644
--- a/hw/virtio/vhost-user.c
+++ b/hw/virtio/vhost-user.c
@@ -1235,7 +1235,21 @@  static int vhost_user_set_vring_enable(struct vhost_dev *dev, int enable)
             .num   = enable,
         };
 
-        ret = vhost_set_vring(dev, VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE, &state, false);
+        /*
+         * SET_VRING_ENABLE travels from guest to QEMU to vhost-user backend /
+         * control plane thread via unix domain socket. Virtio requests travel
+         * from guest to vhost-user backend / data plane thread via eventfd.
+         * Even if the guest enables the ring first, and pushes its first virtio
+         * request second (conforming to the virtio spec), the data plane thread
+         * in the backend may see the virtio request before the control plane
+         * thread sees the queue enablement. This causes (in fact, requires) the
+         * data plane thread to discard the virtio request (it arrived on a
+         * seemingly disabled queue). To prevent this out-of-order delivery,
+         * don't let the guest proceed to pushing the virtio request until the
+         * backend control plane acknowledges enabling the queue -- IOW, pass
+         * wait_for_reply=true below.
+         */
+        ret = vhost_set_vring(dev, VHOST_USER_SET_VRING_ENABLE, &state, true);
         if (ret < 0) {
             /*
              * Restoring the previous state is likely infeasible, as well as