summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/Documentation/driver-api/virtio/virtio.rst
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorMiguel Ojeda <ojeda@kernel.org>2026-08-16 15:32:33 +0200
committerMiguel Ojeda <ojeda@kernel.org>2026-08-23 21:27:17 +0200
commit5febf432df1cfa5b25d99b54c32103fafbdd0eb9 (patch)
tree93a1ed1d337bc53adf1e572c2586d347703b286e /Documentation/driver-api/virtio/virtio.rst
downloadlinux-stable-5febf432df1cfa5b25d99b54c32103fafbdd0eb9.tar.gz
linux-stable-5febf432df1cfa5b25d99b54c32103fafbdd0eb9.zip
kbuild: rust: keep Rust objects out of Clang LTO with inline helpersgrafted
Under `CONFIG_LTO_CLANG` + `CONFIG_RUST_INLINE_HELPERS`, one may hit `objtool` errors such as: vmlinux.o: error: objtool: _R..._3Gsp4boot+0xd6a: can't find jump dest instruction at .text._R..._3Gsp4boot+0x1dfd The reason is that in such builds, the Clang invocation that compiles the combined Rust plus helpers bitcode emits LLVM bitcode (again) -- the final code generation happens in the linker's LTO step, which the `-mllvm` trap options passed to Clang do not reach. This, in turn, means that unreachable traps are missing, and the impossible paths do not merely fallthrough to the next symbol, but past the end of their own section, since LTO builds place each function in its own section. Thus filter `CC_FLAGS_LTO` out of the Clang invocation, so that it always emits machine code directly, with the traps in place. Assisted-by: LLM Cc: Gary Guo <gary@garyguo.net> Cc: Boqun Feng <boqun@kernel.org> Cc: Alice Ryhl <aliceryhl@google.com> Cc: Matthew Maurer <mmaurer@google.com> Cc: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@kernel.org> Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org> Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org Fixes: 3a2486cc1da5 ("kbuild: rust: provide an option to inline C helpers into Rust") Acked-by: Gary Guo <gary@garyguo.net> Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260816133233.197500-2-ojeda@kernel.org Signed-off-by: Miguel Ojeda <ojeda@kernel.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/driver-api/virtio/virtio.rst')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/driver-api/virtio/virtio.rst145
1 files changed, 145 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/driver-api/virtio/virtio.rst b/Documentation/driver-api/virtio/virtio.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..7947b4ca6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/driver-api/virtio/virtio.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,145 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+.. _virtio:
+
+===============
+Virtio on Linux
+===============
+
+Introduction
+============
+
+Virtio is an open standard that defines a protocol for communication
+between drivers and devices of different types, see Chapter 5 ("Device
+Types") of the virtio spec (`[1]`_). Originally developed as a standard
+for paravirtualized devices implemented by a hypervisor, it can be used
+to interface any compliant device (real or emulated) with a driver.
+
+For illustrative purposes, this document will focus on the common case
+of a Linux kernel running in a virtual machine and using paravirtualized
+devices provided by the hypervisor, which exposes them as virtio devices
+via standard mechanisms such as PCI.
+
+
+Device - Driver communication: virtqueues
+=========================================
+
+Although the virtio devices are really an abstraction layer in the
+hypervisor, they're exposed to the guest as if they are physical devices
+using a specific transport method -- PCI, MMIO or CCW -- that is
+orthogonal to the device itself. The virtio spec defines these transport
+methods in detail, including device discovery, capabilities and
+interrupt handling.
+
+The communication between the driver in the guest OS and the device in
+the hypervisor is done through shared memory (that's what makes virtio
+devices so efficient) using specialized data structures called
+virtqueues, which are actually ring buffers [#f1]_ of buffer descriptors
+similar to the ones used in a network device:
+
+.. kernel-doc:: include/uapi/linux/virtio_ring.h
+ :identifiers: struct vring_desc
+
+All the buffers the descriptors point to are allocated by the guest and
+used by the host either for reading or for writing but not for both.
+
+Refer to Chapter 2.5 ("Virtqueues") of the virtio spec (`[1]`_) for the
+reference definitions of virtqueues and "Virtqueues and virtio ring: How
+the data travels" blog post (`[2]`_) for an illustrated overview of how
+the host device and the guest driver communicate.
+
+The :c:type:`vring_virtqueue` struct models a virtqueue, including the
+ring buffers and management data. Embedded in this struct is the
+:c:type:`virtqueue` struct, which is the data structure that's
+ultimately used by virtio drivers:
+
+.. kernel-doc:: include/linux/virtio.h
+ :identifiers: struct virtqueue
+
+The callback function pointed by this struct is triggered when the
+device has consumed the buffers provided by the driver. More
+specifically, the trigger will be an interrupt issued by the hypervisor
+(see vring_interrupt()). Interrupt request handlers are registered for
+a virtqueue during the virtqueue setup process (transport-specific).
+
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c
+ :identifiers: vring_interrupt
+
+
+Device discovery and probing
+============================
+
+In the kernel, the virtio core contains the virtio bus driver and
+transport-specific drivers like `virtio-pci` and `virtio-mmio`. Then
+there are individual virtio drivers for specific device types that are
+registered to the virtio bus driver.
+
+How a virtio device is found and configured by the kernel depends on how
+the hypervisor defines it. Taking the `QEMU virtio-console
+<https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/blob/master/hw/char/virtio-console.c>`__
+device as an example. When using PCI as a transport method, the device
+will present itself on the PCI bus with vendor 0x1af4 (Red Hat, Inc.)
+and device id 0x1003 (virtio console), as defined in the spec, so the
+kernel will detect it as it would do with any other PCI device.
+
+During the PCI enumeration process, if a device is found to match the
+virtio-pci driver (according to the virtio-pci device table, any PCI
+device with vendor id = 0x1af4)::
+
+ /* Qumranet donated their vendor ID for devices 0x1000 thru 0x10FF. */
+ static const struct pci_device_id virtio_pci_id_table[] = {
+ { PCI_DEVICE(PCI_VENDOR_ID_REDHAT_QUMRANET, PCI_ANY_ID) },
+ { 0 }
+ };
+
+then the virtio-pci driver is probed and, if the probing goes well, the
+device is registered to the virtio bus::
+
+ static int virtio_pci_probe(struct pci_dev *pci_dev,
+ const struct pci_device_id *id)
+ {
+ ...
+
+ if (force_legacy) {
+ rc = virtio_pci_legacy_probe(vp_dev);
+ /* Also try modern mode if we can't map BAR0 (no IO space). */
+ if (rc == -ENODEV || rc == -ENOMEM)
+ rc = virtio_pci_modern_probe(vp_dev);
+ if (rc)
+ goto err_probe;
+ } else {
+ rc = virtio_pci_modern_probe(vp_dev);
+ if (rc == -ENODEV)
+ rc = virtio_pci_legacy_probe(vp_dev);
+ if (rc)
+ goto err_probe;
+ }
+
+ ...
+
+ rc = register_virtio_device(&vp_dev->vdev);
+
+When the device is registered to the virtio bus the kernel will look
+for a driver in the bus that can handle the device and call that
+driver's ``probe`` method.
+
+At this point, the virtqueues will be allocated and configured by
+calling the appropriate ``virtio_find`` helper function, such as
+virtio_find_single_vq() or virtio_find_vqs(), which will end up calling
+a transport-specific ``find_vqs`` method.
+
+
+References
+==========
+
+_`[1]` Virtio Spec v1.2:
+https://docs.oasis-open.org/virtio/virtio/v1.2/virtio-v1.2.html
+
+.. Check for later versions of the spec as well.
+
+_`[2]` Virtqueues and virtio ring: How the data travels
+https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/virtqueues-and-virtio-ring-how-data-travels
+
+.. rubric:: Footnotes
+
+.. [#f1] that's why they may be also referred to as virtrings.