Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH RFC v2 5/7] libxl/vNUMA: VM config parsing functions

[Dario Faggioli <dario.faggioli@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On ven, 2013-10-11 at 12:18 +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Dario Faggioli writes ("Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH RFC v2 5/7] libxl/vNUMA: VM 
> config parsing functions"):
> > On gio, 2013-10-10 at 12:25 -0400, Elena Ufimtseva wrote:
> > > 3) if vdistance number of elements = vnodes * vnodes, take as it is.
> > 
> > Sure.
> 
> I have some qualms about this:
> 
> Aren't there some constraints that need to be imposed ?  For example,
> distance[X,Y]==distance[Y,X] ?  What about the triangle inequality
> (distance[A,B] + distance[B,C] >= distance[A,C]) ?
> 
I think Linux does some sanity checking of the distance table (and I
think it disables NUMA if finding out something weird, Elena?). However,
this (what Linux expects/checks for) shouldn't really be the only
criterion, since although Linux is the only current implementation,
there is no reason why this can't be implemented by other OSes.

My point being that we can for sure identify some obviously pathological
cases (after having reached an agreement on what that would mean), and
either exit or print a warning if they show up, but I don't think it's
libxl's job to fully ensure consistency.

> Do we really want/need to allow the specification of any arbitrary
> distance matrix (subject perhaps to such constraints) ?
> 
Personally, yes, I think we should try to stick with what the user asks
us to do. Again, we perhaps can have some checking in place (this is not
an hot path) and print warnings.

We can also consider a symmetric matrix as a sane default and hence
allow the user to specify only half of the distances.

> If we do need this I think the nested lists are probably a better
> syntax for specifying the whole array.  
>
Agreed. I actually wanted to say the same. Would something like this be
ok?

distances = [ [10, 20], [20, 10] ]

Or this:

distances = [ [10, 20, 30, 40],
              [20, 10, 20, 30],
              [30, 20, 10, 20],
              [40, 30, 20, 10] ]

Which, considering the above, could also be specified as this:

distances = [ [10, 20, 30, 40],
                  [10, 20, 30],
                      [10, 20],
                          [10] ]

(I.e., "distances = [ [10, 20, 30, 40], [10, 20, 30], [10, 20], [10] ])


Elena, what do you think?

> That would also more easily
> allow the user to specify only half of the symmetric matrix, and make
> it syntactically clearer what's intended.
> 
Wow, I seem we're on the same pitch here. :-D

Thanks and Regards,
Dario

-- 
<<This happens because I choose it to happen!>> (Raistlin Majere)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dario Faggioli, Ph.D, http://about.me/dario.faggioli
Senior Software Engineer, Citrix Systems R&D Ltd., Cambridge (UK)

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