VGPU type identifiers

Introduction

When xapi starts, it may create a number of VGPU_type objects. These act as VGPU presets, and exactly which VGPU_type objects are created depends on the installed hardware and in certain cases the presence of certain files in dom0.

When deciding which VGPU_type objects need to be created, xapi needs to determine whether a suitable VGPU_type object already exists, as there should never be duplicates. At the moment the combination of vendor name and model name is used as a primary key, but this is not ideal as these values are subject to change. We therefore need a way of creating a primary key to uniquely identify VGPU_type objects.

Identifier

We will add a new read-only field to the database:

• VGPU_type.identifier (string)

This field will contain a string representation of the parameters required to uniquely identify a VGPU_type. The parameters required can be summed up with the following OCaml type:

type nvidia_id = {
  pdev_id : int;
  psubdev_id : int option;
  vdev_id : int;
  vsubdev_id : int;
}

type gvt_g_id = {
  pdev_id : int;
  low_gm_sz : int64;
  high_gm_sz : int64;
  fence_sz : int64;
  monitor_config_file : string option;
}

type t =
  | Passthrough
  | Nvidia of nvidia_id
  | GVT_g of gvt_g_id

When converting this type to a string, the string will always be prefixed with 0001: enabling future versioning of the serialisation format.

For passthrough, the string will simply be:

0001:passthrough

For NVIDIA, the string will be nvidia followed by the four device IDs serialised as four-digit hex values, separated by commas. If psubdev_id is None, the empty string will be used e.g.

Nvidia {
  pdev_id = 0x11bf;
  psubdev_id = None;
  vdev_id = 0x11b0;
  vsubdev_id = 0x109d;
}

would map to

0001:nvidia,11bf,,11b0,109d

For GVT-g, the string will be gvt-g followed by the physical device ID encoded as four-digit hex, followed by low_gm_sz, high_gm_sz and fence_sz encoded as hex, followed by monitor_config_file (or the empty string if it is None) e.g.

GVT_g {
  pdev_id = 0x162a;
  low_gm_sz = 128L;
  high_gm_sz = 384L;
  fence_sz = 4L;
  monitor_config_file = None;
}

would map to

0001:gvt-g,162a,80,180,4,,

Having this string in the database will allow us to do a simple lookup to test whether a certain VGPU_type already exists. Although it is not currently required, this string can also be converted back to the type from which it was generated.

When deciding whether to create VGPU_type objects, xapi will generate the identifier string and use it to look for existing VGPU_type objects in the database. If none are found, xapi will look for existing VGPU_type objects with the tuple of model name and vendor name. If still none are found, xapi will create a new VGPU_type object.