libvirt/docs/kbase/internals/qemu-migration.rst

QEMU Migration Phases

QEMU supports only migration protocols 2 and 3 (1 was lacking too many steps). Repeating the protocol sequences from libvirt.c:

Migration protocol v2 API Sequence

Src: DumpXML

• Generate XML to pass to dst

Dst: Prepare

• Get ready to accept incoming VM
• Generate optional cookie to pass to src

Src: Perform

• Start migration and wait for send completion
• Kill off VM if successful, resume if failed

Dst: Finish

• Wait for recv completion and check status
• Kill off VM if unsuccessful

Migration protocol v3 API Sequence

Src: Begin

• Generate XML to pass to dst
• Generate optional cookie to pass to dst

Dst: Prepare

• Get ready to accept incoming VM
• Generate optional cookie to pass to src

Src: Perform

• Start migration and wait for send completion
• Generate optional cookie to pass to dst

Dst: Finish

• Wait for recv completion and check status
• Kill off VM if failed, resume if success
• Generate optional cookie to pass to src

Src: Confirm

• Kill off VM if success, resume if failed

QEMU Migration Locking Rules

Migration is a complicated beast which may span across several APIs on both source and destination side and we need to keep the domain we are migrating in a consistent state during the whole process.

To avoid anyone from changing the domain in the middle of migration we need to keep MIGRATION_OUT job active during migration from Begin to Confirm on the source side and MIGRATION_IN job has to be active from Prepare to Finish on the destination side.

For this purpose we introduce several helper methods to deal with locking primitives (described in qemu-threads) in the right way:

• qemuMigrationJobStart
• qemuMigrationJobContinue
• qemuMigrationJobStartPhase
• qemuMigrationJobSetPhase
• qemuMigrationJobFinish

The sequence of calling qemuMigrationJob* helper methods is as follows:

• The first API of a migration protocol (Prepare or Perform/Begin depending on migration type and version) has to start migration job and keep it active:

  qemuMigrationJobStart(driver, vm, VIR_JOB_MIGRATION_{IN,OUT});
  qemuMigrationJobSetPhase(vm, QEMU_MIGRATION_PHASE_*);
  ...do work...
  qemuMigrationJobContinue(vm);

• All consequent phases except for the last one have to keep the job active:

  if (!qemuMigrationJobIsActive(vm, VIR_JOB_MIGRATION_{IN,OUT}))
      return;
  qemuMigrationJobStartPhase(driver, vm, QEMU_MIGRATION_PHASE_*);
  ...do work...
  qemuMigrationJobContinue(vm);

• The last migration phase finally finishes the migration job:

  if (!qemuMigrationJobIsActive(vm, VIR_JOB_MIGRATION_{IN,OUT}))
      return;
  qemuMigrationJobStartPhase(driver, vm, QEMU_MIGRATION_PHASE_*);
  ...do work...
  qemuMigrationJobFinish(vm);

While migration job is running (i.e., after qemuMigrationJobStart* but before qemuMigrationJob{Continue,Finish}), migration phase can be advanced using:

qemuMigrationJobSetPhase(vm, QEMU_MIGRATION_PHASE_*);