summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/Documentation/virt/paravirt_ops.rst
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-07 18:49:45 +0000
committerDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-07 18:49:45 +0000
commit2c3c1048746a4622d8c89a29670120dc8fab93c4 (patch)
tree848558de17fb3008cdf4d861b01ac7781903ce39 /Documentation/virt/paravirt_ops.rst
parentInitial commit. (diff)
downloadlinux-2c3c1048746a4622d8c89a29670120dc8fab93c4.tar.xz
linux-2c3c1048746a4622d8c89a29670120dc8fab93c4.zip
Adding upstream version 6.1.76.upstream/6.1.76upstream
Signed-off-by: Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/virt/paravirt_ops.rst')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/virt/paravirt_ops.rst35
1 files changed, 35 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/virt/paravirt_ops.rst b/Documentation/virt/paravirt_ops.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..6b789d27c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/virt/paravirt_ops.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+============
+Paravirt_ops
+============
+
+Linux provides support for different hypervisor virtualization technologies.
+Historically different binary kernels would be required in order to support
+different hypervisors, this restriction was removed with pv_ops.
+Linux pv_ops is a virtualization API which enables support for different
+hypervisors. It allows each hypervisor to override critical operations and
+allows a single kernel binary to run on all supported execution environments
+including native machine -- without any hypervisors.
+
+pv_ops provides a set of function pointers which represent operations
+corresponding to low level critical instructions and high level
+functionalities in various areas. pv-ops allows for optimizations at run
+time by enabling binary patching of the low-ops critical operations
+at boot time.
+
+pv_ops operations are classified into three categories:
+
+- simple indirect call
+ These operations correspond to high level functionality where it is
+ known that the overhead of indirect call isn't very important.
+
+- indirect call which allows optimization with binary patch
+ Usually these operations correspond to low level critical instructions. They
+ are called frequently and are performance critical. The overhead is
+ very important.
+
+- a set of macros for hand written assembly code
+ Hand written assembly codes (.S files) also need paravirtualization
+ because they include sensitive instructions or some of code paths in
+ them are very performance critical.