diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/virtual/kvm/hypercalls.txt')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/virtual/kvm/hypercalls.txt | 143 |
1 files changed, 143 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/virtual/kvm/hypercalls.txt b/Documentation/virtual/kvm/hypercalls.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..da24c138c --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/virtual/kvm/hypercalls.txt @@ -0,0 +1,143 @@ +Linux KVM Hypercall: +=================== +X86: + KVM Hypercalls have a three-byte sequence of either the vmcall or the vmmcall + instruction. The hypervisor can replace it with instructions that are + guaranteed to be supported. + + Up to four arguments may be passed in rbx, rcx, rdx, and rsi respectively. + The hypercall number should be placed in rax and the return value will be + placed in rax. No other registers will be clobbered unless explicitly stated + by the particular hypercall. + +S390: + R2-R7 are used for parameters 1-6. In addition, R1 is used for hypercall + number. The return value is written to R2. + + S390 uses diagnose instruction as hypercall (0x500) along with hypercall + number in R1. + + For further information on the S390 diagnose call as supported by KVM, + refer to Documentation/virtual/kvm/s390-diag.txt. + + PowerPC: + It uses R3-R10 and hypercall number in R11. R4-R11 are used as output registers. + Return value is placed in R3. + + KVM hypercalls uses 4 byte opcode, that are patched with 'hypercall-instructions' + property inside the device tree's /hypervisor node. + For more information refer to Documentation/virtual/kvm/ppc-pv.txt + +MIPS: + KVM hypercalls use the HYPCALL instruction with code 0 and the hypercall + number in $2 (v0). Up to four arguments may be placed in $4-$7 (a0-a3) and + the return value is placed in $2 (v0). + +KVM Hypercalls Documentation +=========================== +The template for each hypercall is: +1. Hypercall name. +2. Architecture(s) +3. Status (deprecated, obsolete, active) +4. Purpose + +1. KVM_HC_VAPIC_POLL_IRQ +------------------------ +Architecture: x86 +Status: active +Purpose: Trigger guest exit so that the host can check for pending +interrupts on reentry. + +2. KVM_HC_MMU_OP +------------------------ +Architecture: x86 +Status: deprecated. +Purpose: Support MMU operations such as writing to PTE, +flushing TLB, release PT. + +3. KVM_HC_FEATURES +------------------------ +Architecture: PPC +Status: active +Purpose: Expose hypercall availability to the guest. On x86 platforms, cpuid +used to enumerate which hypercalls are available. On PPC, either device tree +based lookup ( which is also what EPAPR dictates) OR KVM specific enumeration +mechanism (which is this hypercall) can be used. + +4. KVM_HC_PPC_MAP_MAGIC_PAGE +------------------------ +Architecture: PPC +Status: active +Purpose: To enable communication between the hypervisor and guest there is a +shared page that contains parts of supervisor visible register state. +The guest can map this shared page to access its supervisor register through +memory using this hypercall. + +5. KVM_HC_KICK_CPU +------------------------ +Architecture: x86 +Status: active +Purpose: Hypercall used to wakeup a vcpu from HLT state +Usage example : A vcpu of a paravirtualized guest that is busywaiting in guest +kernel mode for an event to occur (ex: a spinlock to become available) can +execute HLT instruction once it has busy-waited for more than a threshold +time-interval. Execution of HLT instruction would cause the hypervisor to put +the vcpu to sleep until occurrence of an appropriate event. Another vcpu of the +same guest can wakeup the sleeping vcpu by issuing KVM_HC_KICK_CPU hypercall, +specifying APIC ID (a1) of the vcpu to be woken up. An additional argument (a0) +is used in the hypercall for future use. + + +6. KVM_HC_CLOCK_PAIRING +------------------------ +Architecture: x86 +Status: active +Purpose: Hypercall used to synchronize host and guest clocks. +Usage: + +a0: guest physical address where host copies +"struct kvm_clock_offset" structure. + +a1: clock_type, ATM only KVM_CLOCK_PAIRING_WALLCLOCK (0) +is supported (corresponding to the host's CLOCK_REALTIME clock). + + struct kvm_clock_pairing { + __s64 sec; + __s64 nsec; + __u64 tsc; + __u32 flags; + __u32 pad[9]; + }; + + Where: + * sec: seconds from clock_type clock. + * nsec: nanoseconds from clock_type clock. + * tsc: guest TSC value used to calculate sec/nsec pair + * flags: flags, unused (0) at the moment. + +The hypercall lets a guest compute a precise timestamp across +host and guest. The guest can use the returned TSC value to +compute the CLOCK_REALTIME for its clock, at the same instant. + +Returns KVM_EOPNOTSUPP if the host does not use TSC clocksource, +or if clock type is different than KVM_CLOCK_PAIRING_WALLCLOCK. + +6. KVM_HC_SEND_IPI +------------------------ +Architecture: x86 +Status: active +Purpose: Send IPIs to multiple vCPUs. + +a0: lower part of the bitmap of destination APIC IDs +a1: higher part of the bitmap of destination APIC IDs +a2: the lowest APIC ID in bitmap +a3: APIC ICR + +The hypercall lets a guest send multicast IPIs, with at most 128 +128 destinations per hypercall in 64-bit mode and 64 vCPUs per +hypercall in 32-bit mode. The destinations are represented by a +bitmap contained in the first two arguments (a0 and a1). Bit 0 of +a0 corresponds to the APIC ID in the third argument (a2), bit 1 +corresponds to the APIC ID a2+1, and so on. + +Returns the number of CPUs to which the IPIs were delivered successfully. |