1QEMU Virtual NVDIMM 2=================== 3 4This document explains the usage of virtual NVDIMM (vNVDIMM) feature 5which is available since QEMU v2.6.0. 6 7The current QEMU only implements the persistent memory mode of vNVDIMM 8device and not the block window mode. 9 10Basic Usage 11----------- 12 13The storage of a vNVDIMM device in QEMU is provided by the memory 14backend (i.e. memory-backend-file and memory-backend-ram). A simple 15way to create a vNVDIMM device at startup time is done via the 16following command line options: 17 18 -machine pc,nvdimm 19 -m $RAM_SIZE,slots=$N,maxmem=$MAX_SIZE 20 -object memory-backend-file,id=mem1,share=on,mem-path=$PATH,size=$NVDIMM_SIZE 21 -device nvdimm,id=nvdimm1,memdev=mem1 22 23Where, 24 25 - the "nvdimm" machine option enables vNVDIMM feature. 26 27 - "slots=$N" should be equal to or larger than the total amount of 28 normal RAM devices and vNVDIMM devices, e.g. $N should be >= 2 here. 29 30 - "maxmem=$MAX_SIZE" should be equal to or larger than the total size 31 of normal RAM devices and vNVDIMM devices, e.g. $MAX_SIZE should be 32 >= $RAM_SIZE + $NVDIMM_SIZE here. 33 34 - "object memory-backend-file,id=mem1,share=on,mem-path=$PATH,size=$NVDIMM_SIZE" 35 creates a backend storage of size $NVDIMM_SIZE on a file $PATH. All 36 accesses to the virtual NVDIMM device go to the file $PATH. 37 38 "share=on/off" controls the visibility of guest writes. If 39 "share=on", then guest writes will be applied to the backend 40 file. If another guest uses the same backend file with option 41 "share=on", then above writes will be visible to it as well. If 42 "share=off", then guest writes won't be applied to the backend 43 file and thus will be invisible to other guests. 44 45 - "device nvdimm,id=nvdimm1,memdev=mem1" creates a virtual NVDIMM 46 device whose storage is provided by above memory backend device. 47 48Multiple vNVDIMM devices can be created if multiple pairs of "-object" 49and "-device" are provided. 50 51For above command line options, if the guest OS has the proper NVDIMM 52driver (e.g. "CONFIG_ACPI_NFIT=y" under Linux), it should be able to 53detect a NVDIMM device which is in the persistent memory mode and whose 54size is $NVDIMM_SIZE. 55 56Note: 57 581. Prior to QEMU v2.8.0, if memory-backend-file is used and the actual 59 backend file size is not equal to the size given by "size" option, 60 QEMU will truncate the backend file by ftruncate(2), which will 61 corrupt the existing data in the backend file, especially for the 62 shrink case. 63 64 QEMU v2.8.0 and later check the backend file size and the "size" 65 option. If they do not match, QEMU will report errors and abort in 66 order to avoid the data corruption. 67 682. QEMU v2.6.0 only puts a basic alignment requirement on the "size" 69 option of memory-backend-file, e.g. 4KB alignment on x86. However, 70 QEMU v.2.7.0 puts an additional alignment requirement, which may 71 require a larger value than the basic one, e.g. 2MB on x86. This 72 change breaks the usage of memory-backend-file that only satisfies 73 the basic alignment. 74 75 QEMU v2.8.0 and later remove the additional alignment on non-s390x 76 architectures, so the broken memory-backend-file can work again. 77 78Label 79----- 80 81QEMU v2.7.0 and later implement the label support for vNVDIMM devices. 82To enable label on vNVDIMM devices, users can simply add 83"label-size=$SZ" option to "-device nvdimm", e.g. 84 85 -device nvdimm,id=nvdimm1,memdev=mem1,label-size=128K 86 87Note: 88 891. The minimal label size is 128KB. 90 912. QEMU v2.7.0 and later store labels at the end of backend storage. 92 If a memory backend file, which was previously used as the backend 93 of a vNVDIMM device without labels, is now used for a vNVDIMM 94 device with label, the data in the label area at the end of file 95 will be inaccessible to the guest. If any useful data (e.g. the 96 meta-data of the file system) was stored there, the latter usage 97 may result guest data corruption (e.g. breakage of guest file 98 system). 99 100Hotplug 101------- 102 103QEMU v2.8.0 and later implement the hotplug support for vNVDIMM 104devices. Similarly to the RAM hotplug, the vNVDIMM hotplug is 105accomplished by two monitor commands "object_add" and "device_add". 106 107For example, the following commands add another 4GB vNVDIMM device to 108the guest: 109 110 (qemu) object_add memory-backend-file,id=mem2,share=on,mem-path=new_nvdimm.img,size=4G 111 (qemu) device_add nvdimm,id=nvdimm2,memdev=mem2 112 113Note: 114 1151. Each hotplugged vNVDIMM device consumes one memory slot. Users 116 should always ensure the memory option "-m ...,slots=N" specifies 117 enough number of slots, i.e. 118 N >= number of RAM devices + 119 number of statically plugged vNVDIMM devices + 120 number of hotplugged vNVDIMM devices 121 1222. The similar is required for the memory option "-m ...,maxmem=M", i.e. 123 M >= size of RAM devices + 124 size of statically plugged vNVDIMM devices + 125 size of hotplugged vNVDIMM devices 126 127Alignment 128--------- 129 130QEMU uses mmap(2) to maps vNVDIMM backends and aligns the mapping 131address to the page size (getpagesize(2)) by default. However, some 132types of backends may require an alignment different than the page 133size. In that case, QEMU v2.12.0 and later provide 'align' option to 134memory-backend-file to allow users to specify the proper alignment. 135 136For example, device dax require the 2 MB alignment, so we can use 137following QEMU command line options to use it (/dev/dax0.0) as the 138backend of vNVDIMM: 139 140 -object memory-backend-file,id=mem1,share=on,mem-path=/dev/dax0.0,size=4G,align=2M 141 -device nvdimm,id=nvdimm1,memdev=mem1 142 143Guest Data Persistence 144---------------------- 145 146Though QEMU supports multiple types of vNVDIMM backends on Linux, 147currently the only one that can guarantee the guest write persistence 148is the device DAX on the real NVDIMM device (e.g., /dev/dax0.0), to 149which all guest access do not involve any host-side kernel cache. 150 151When using other types of backends, it's suggested to set 'unarmed' 152option of '-device nvdimm' to 'on', which sets the unarmed flag of the 153guest NVDIMM region mapping structure. This unarmed flag indicates 154guest software that this vNVDIMM device contains a region that cannot 155accept persistent writes. In result, for example, the guest Linux 156NVDIMM driver, marks such vNVDIMM device as read-only. 157 158NVDIMM Persistence 159------------------ 160 161ACPI 6.2 Errata A added support for a new Platform Capabilities Structure 162which allows the platform to communicate what features it supports related to 163NVDIMM data persistence. Users can provide a persistence value to a guest via 164the optional "nvdimm-persistence" machine command line option: 165 166 -machine pc,accel=kvm,nvdimm,nvdimm-persistence=cpu 167 168There are currently two valid values for this option: 169 170"mem-ctrl" - The platform supports flushing dirty data from the memory 171 controller to the NVDIMMs in the event of power loss. 172 173"cpu" - The platform supports flushing dirty data from the CPU cache to 174 the NVDIMMs in the event of power loss. This implies that the 175 platform also supports flushing dirty data through the memory 176 controller on power loss. 177 178If the vNVDIMM backend is in host persistent memory that can be accessed in 179SNIA NVM Programming Model [1] (e.g., Intel NVDIMM), it's suggested to set 180the 'pmem' option of memory-backend-file to 'on'. When 'pmem' is 'on' and QEMU 181is built with libpmem [2] support (configured with --enable-libpmem), QEMU 182will take necessary operations to guarantee the persistence of its own writes 183to the vNVDIMM backend(e.g., in vNVDIMM label emulation and live migration). 184If 'pmem' is 'on' while there is no libpmem support, qemu will exit and report 185a "lack of libpmem support" message to ensure the persistence is available. 186For example, if we want to ensure the persistence for some backend file, 187use the QEMU command line: 188 189 -object memory-backend-file,id=nv_mem,mem-path=/XXX/yyy,size=4G,pmem=on 190 191References 192---------- 193 194[1] NVM Programming Model (NPM) 195 Version 1.2 196 https://www.snia.org/sites/default/files/technical_work/final/NVMProgrammingModel_v1.2.pdf 197[2] Persistent Memory Development Kit (PMDK), formerly known as NVML project, home page: 198 http://pmem.io/pmdk/ 199