From 9cd9313fc3cb94243512bf36d0d67d4dbd60d6f1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: David Hildenbrand Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2023 14:05:01 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] docs: Start documenting VM templating MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Let's add some details about VM templating, focusing on the VM memory configuration only. There is much more to VM templating (VM state? block devices?), but I leave that as future work. Message-ID: <20230906120503.359863-10-david@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Philippe Mathieu-Daudé Signed-off-by: David Hildenbrand --- MAINTAINERS | 1 + docs/system/index.rst | 1 + docs/system/vm-templating.rst | 125 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 3 files changed, 127 insertions(+) create mode 100644 docs/system/vm-templating.rst diff --git a/MAINTAINERS b/MAINTAINERS index 00562f924f..3cf53553fc 100644 --- a/MAINTAINERS +++ b/MAINTAINERS @@ -2963,6 +2963,7 @@ M: Igor Mammedov S: Maintained F: backends/hostmem*.c F: include/sysemu/hostmem.h +F: docs/system/vm-templating.rst T: git https://gitlab.com/ehabkost/qemu.git machine-next Cryptodev Backends diff --git a/docs/system/index.rst b/docs/system/index.rst index 45bf1f19e7..c21065e519 100644 --- a/docs/system/index.rst +++ b/docs/system/index.rst @@ -38,3 +38,4 @@ or Hypervisor.Framework. security multi-process confidential-guest-support + vm-templating diff --git a/docs/system/vm-templating.rst b/docs/system/vm-templating.rst new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..28905a1eeb --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/system/vm-templating.rst @@ -0,0 +1,125 @@ +QEMU VM templating +================== + +This document explains how to use VM templating in QEMU. + +For now, the focus is on VM memory aspects, and not about how to save and +restore other VM state (i.e., migrate-to-file with ``x-ignore-shared``). + +Overview +-------- + +With VM templating, a single template VM serves as the starting point for +new VMs. This allows for fast and efficient replication of VMs, resulting +in fast startup times and reduced memory consumption. + +Conceptually, the VM state is frozen, to then be used as a basis for new +VMs. The Copy-On-Write mechanism in the operating systems makes sure that +new VMs are able to read template VM memory; however, any modifications +stay private and don't modify the original template VM or any other +created VM. + +!!! Security Alert !!! +---------------------- + +When effectively cloning VMs by VM templating, hardware identifiers +(such as UUIDs and NIC MAC addresses), and similar data in the guest OS +(such as machine IDs, SSH keys, certificates) that are supposed to be +*unique* are no longer unique, which can be a security concern. + +Please be aware of these implications and how to mitigate them for your +use case, which might involve vmgenid, hot(un)plug of NIC, etc.. + +Memory configuration +-------------------- + +In order to create the template VM, we have to make sure that VM memory +ends up in a file, from where it can be reused for the new VMs: + +Supply VM RAM via memory-backend-file, with ``share=on`` (modifications go +to the file) and ``readonly=off`` (open the file writable). Note that +``readonly=off`` is implicit. + +In the following command-line example, a 2GB VM is created, whereby VM RAM +is to be stored in the ``template`` file. + +.. parsed-literal:: + + |qemu_system| [...] -m 2g \\ + -object memory-backend-file,id=pc.ram,mem-path=template,size=2g,share=on,... \\ + -machine q35,memory-backend=pc.ram + +If multiple memory backends are used (vNUMA, DIMMs), configure all +memory backends accordingly. + +Once the VM is in the desired state, stop the VM and save other VM state, +leaving the current state of VM RAM reside in the file. + +In order to have a new VM be based on a template VM, we have to +configure VM RAM to be based on a template VM RAM file; however, the VM +should not be able to modify file content. + +Supply VM RAM via memory-backend-file, with ``share=off`` (modifications +stay private), ``readonly=on`` (open the file readonly) and ``rom=off`` +(don't make the memory readonly for the VM). Note that ``share=off`` is +implicit and that other VM state has to be restored separately. + +In the following command-line example, a 2GB VM is created based on the +existing 2GB file ``template``. + +.. parsed-literal:: + + |qemu_system| [...] -m 2g \\ + -object memory-backend-file,id=pc.ram,mem-path=template,size=2g,readonly=on,rom=off,... \\ + -machine q35,memory-backend=pc.ram + +If multiple memory backends are used (vNUMA, DIMMs), configure all +memory backends accordingly. + +Note that ``-mem-path`` cannot be used for VM templating when creating the +template VM or when starting new VMs based on a template VM. + +Incompatible features +--------------------- + +Some features are incompatible with VM templating, as the underlying file +cannot be modified to discard VM RAM, or to actually share memory with +another process. + +vhost-user and multi-process QEMU +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +vhost-user and multi-process QEMU are incompatible with VM templating. +These technologies rely on shared memory, however, the template VMs +don't actually share memory (``share=off``), even though they are +file-based. + +virtio-balloon +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +virtio-balloon inflation and "free page reporting" cannot discard VM RAM +and will repeatedly report errors. While virtio-balloon can be used +for template VMs (e.g., report VM RAM stats), "free page reporting" +should be disabled and the balloon should not be inflated. + +virtio-mem +~~~~~~~~~~ + +virtio-mem cannot discard VM RAM that is managed by the virtio-mem +device. virtio-mem will fail early when realizing the device. To use +VM templating with virtio-mem, either hotplug virtio-mem devices to the +new VM, or don't supply any memory to the template VM using virtio-mem +(requested-size=0), not using a template VM file as memory backend for the +virtio-mem device. + +VM migration +~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +For VM migration, "x-release-ram" similarly relies on discarding of VM +RAM on the migration source to free up migrated RAM, and will +repeatedly report errors. + +Postcopy live migration fails discarding VM RAM on the migration +destination early and refuses to activate postcopy live migration. Note +that postcopy live migration usually only works on selected filesystems +(shmem/tmpfs, hugetlbfs) either way.