QEMU Driver Threading: The Rules ================================ .. contents:: This document describes how thread safety is ensured throughout the QEMU driver. The criteria for this model are: - Objects must never be exclusively locked for any prolonged time - Code which sleeps must be able to time out after suitable period - Must be safe against dispatch of asynchronous events from monitor Basic locking primitives ------------------------ There are a number of locks on various objects ``virQEMUDriver`` The ``qemu_conf.h`` file has inline comments describing the locking needs for each field. Any field marked immutable, self-locking can be accessed without the driver lock. For other fields there are typically helper APIs in ``qemu_conf.c`` that provide serialized access to the data. No code outside ``qemu_conf.c`` should ever acquire this lock ``virDomainObj`` Will be locked and the reference counter will be increased after calling any of the ``virDomainObjListFindBy{ID,Name,UUID}`` methods. The preferred way of decrementing the reference counter and unlocking the domain is using the ``virDomainObjEndAPI()`` function. Lock must be held when changing/reading any variable in the ``virDomainObj`` This lock must not be held for anything which sleeps/waits (i.e. monitor commands). ``qemuMonitorPrivatePtr`` job conditions Since ``virDomainObj`` lock must not be held during sleeps, the job conditions provide additional protection for code making updates. QEMU driver uses three kinds of job conditions: asynchronous, agent and normal. Asynchronous job condition is used for long running jobs (such as migration) that consist of several monitor commands and it is desirable to allow calling a limited set of other monitor commands while such job is running. This allows clients to, e.g., query statistical data, cancel the job, or change parameters of the job. Normal job condition is used by all other jobs to get exclusive access to the monitor and also by every monitor command issued by an asynchronous job. When acquiring normal job condition, the job must specify what kind of action it is about to take and this is checked against the allowed set of jobs in case an asynchronous job is running. If the job is incompatible with current asynchronous job, it needs to wait until the asynchronous job ends and try to acquire the job again. Agent job condition is then used when thread wishes to talk to qemu agent monitor. It is possible to acquire just agent job (``virDomainObjBeginAgentJob``), or only normal job (``virDomainObjBeginJob``) but not both at the same time. Holding an agent job and a normal job would allow an unresponsive or malicious agent to block normal libvirt API and potentially result in a denial of service. Which type of job to grab depends whether caller wishes to communicate only with agent socket, or only with qemu monitor socket. Immediately after acquiring the ``virDomainObj`` lock, any method which intends to update state must acquire asynchronous, normal or agent job . The ``virDomainObj`` lock is released while blocking on these condition variables. Once the job condition is acquired, a method can safely release the ``virDomainObj`` lock whenever it hits a piece of code which may sleep/wait, and re-acquire it after the sleep/wait. Whenever an asynchronous job wants to talk to the monitor, it needs to acquire nested job (a special kind of normal job) to obtain exclusive access to the monitor. Since the ``virDomainObj`` lock was dropped while waiting for the job condition, it is possible that the domain is no longer active when the condition is finally obtained. The monitor lock is only safe to grab after verifying that the domain is still active. ``qemuMonitor`` mutex Lock to be used when invoking any monitor command to ensure safety wrt any asynchronous events that may be dispatched from the monitor. It should be acquired before running a command. The job condition *MUST* be held before acquiring the monitor lock The ``virDomainObj`` lock *MUST* be held before acquiring the monitor lock. The ``virDomainObj`` lock *MUST* then be released when invoking the monitor command. Helper methods -------------- To lock the ``virDomainObj`` ``virObjectLock()`` - Acquires the ``virDomainObj`` lock ``virObjectUnlock()`` - Releases the ``virDomainObj`` lock To acquire the normal job condition ``virDomainObjBeginJob()`` - Waits until the job is compatible with current async job or no async job is running - Waits for ``job.cond`` condition ``job.active != 0`` using ``virDomainObj`` mutex - Rechecks if the job is still compatible and repeats waiting if it isn't - Sets ``job.active`` to the job type ``virDomainObjEndJob()`` - Sets job.active to 0 - Signals on job.cond condition To acquire the agent job condition ``virDomainObjBeginAgentJob()`` - Waits until there is no other agent job set - Sets ``job.agentActive`` to the job type ``virDomainObjEndAgentJob()`` - Sets ``job.agentActive`` to 0 - Signals on ``job.cond`` condition To acquire the asynchronous job condition ``virDomainObjBeginAsyncJob()`` - Waits until no async job is running - Waits for ``job.cond`` condition ``job.active != 0`` using ``virDomainObj`` mutex - Rechecks if any async job was started while waiting on ``job.cond`` and repeats waiting in that case - Sets ``job.asyncJob`` to the asynchronous job type ``virDomainObjEndAsyncJob()`` - Sets ``job.asyncJob`` to 0 - Broadcasts on ``job.asyncCond`` condition To acquire the QEMU monitor lock ``qemuDomainObjEnterMonitor()`` - Acquires the ``qemuMonitorObj`` lock - Releases the ``virDomainObj`` lock ``qemuDomainObjExitMonitor()`` - Releases the ``qemuMonitorObj`` lock - Acquires the ``virDomainObj`` lock These functions must not be used by an asynchronous job. To acquire the QEMU monitor lock as part of an asynchronous job ``qemuDomainObjEnterMonitorAsync()`` - Validates that the right async job is still running - Acquires the ``qemuMonitorObj`` lock - Releases the ``virDomainObj`` lock - Validates that the VM is still active qemuDomainObjExitMonitor() - Releases the ``qemuMonitorObj`` lock - Acquires the ``virDomainObj`` lock These functions are for use inside an asynchronous job; the caller must check for a return of -1 (VM not running, so nothing to exit). Helper functions may also call this with ``VIR_ASYNC_JOB_NONE`` when used from a sync job (such as when first starting a domain). To keep a domain alive while waiting on a remote command ``qemuDomainObjEnterRemote()`` - Releases the ``virDomainObj`` lock ``qemuDomainObjExitRemote()`` - Acquires the ``virDomainObj`` lock Design patterns --------------- * Accessing something directly to do with a ``virDomainObj``:: virDomainObj *obj; obj = qemuDomObjFromDomain(dom); ...do work... virDomainObjEndAPI(&obj); * Updating something directly to do with a ``virDomainObj``:: virDomainObj *obj; obj = qemuDomObjFromDomain(dom); virDomainObjBeginJob(obj, VIR_JOB_TYPE); ...do work... virDomainObjEndJob(obj); virDomainObjEndAPI(&obj); * Invoking a monitor command on a ``virDomainObj``:: virDomainObj *obj; qemuDomainObjPrivate *priv; obj = qemuDomObjFromDomain(dom); virDomainObjBeginJob(obj, VIR_JOB_TYPE); ...do prep work... if (virDomainObjIsActive(vm)) { qemuDomainObjEnterMonitor(obj); qemuMonitorXXXX(priv->mon); qemuDomainObjExitMonitor(obj); } ...do final work... virDomainObjEndJob(obj); virDomainObjEndAPI(&obj); * Invoking an agent command on a ``virDomainObj``:: virDomainObj *obj; qemuAgent *agent; obj = qemuDomObjFromDomain(dom); virDomainObjBeginAgentJob(obj, VIR_AGENT_JOB_TYPE); ...do prep work... if (!qemuDomainAgentAvailable(obj, true)) goto cleanup; agent = qemuDomainObjEnterAgent(obj); qemuAgentXXXX(agent, ..); qemuDomainObjExitAgent(obj, agent); ...do final work... virDomainObjEndAgentJob(obj); virDomainObjEndAPI(&obj); * Running asynchronous job:: virDomainObj *obj; qemuDomainObjPrivate *priv; obj = qemuDomObjFromDomain(dom); virDomainObjBeginAsyncJob(obj, VIR_ASYNC_JOB_TYPE); qemuDomainObjSetAsyncJobMask(obj, allowedJobs); ...do prep work... if (qemuDomainObjEnterMonitorAsync(driver, obj, VIR_ASYNC_JOB_TYPE) < 0) { /* domain died in the meantime */ goto error; } ...start qemu job... qemuDomainObjExitMonitor(obj); while (!finished) { if (qemuDomainObjEnterMonitorAsync(driver, obj, VIR_ASYNC_JOB_TYPE) < 0) { /* domain died in the meantime */ goto error; } ...monitor job progress... qemuDomainObjExitMonitor(obj); virObjectUnlock(obj); sleep(aWhile); virObjectLock(obj); } ...do final work... virDomainObjEndAsyncJob(obj); virDomainObjEndAPI(&obj); * Coordinating with a remote server for migration:: virDomainObj *obj; qemuDomainObjPrivate *priv; obj = qemuDomObjFromDomain(dom); virDomainObjBeginAsyncJob(obj, VIR_ASYNC_JOB_TYPE); ...do prep work... if (virDomainObjIsActive(vm)) { qemuDomainObjEnterRemote(obj); ...communicate with remote... qemuDomainObjExitRemote(obj); /* domain may have been stopped while we were talking to remote */ if (!virDomainObjIsActive(vm)) { qemuReportError(VIR_ERR_INTERNAL_ERROR, "%s", _("guest unexpectedly quit")); } } ...do final work... virDomainObjEndAsyncJob(obj); virDomainObjEndAPI(&obj);