Preserving IOMMU States During Kexec Reboot for Hypervisor Live Updates

Preserving IOMMU States During Kexec Reboot for Hypervisor Live Updates

Explore a software-based solution for preserving IOMMU states during kexec reboot in cloud hypervisors. Learn about the challenges of live-updating hosts while minimizing guest downtime, focusing on KVM networking complexities. Discover how carefully managing DRAM pages can create stable IOMMU mapping tables, enabling uninterrupted passthrough device IO activity during kernel live-updates. Examine the technical approach, proof of concept, open questions, and future plans for this innovative method. Delve into topics such as live-migration, vfio-pci integration, and the intricacies of pinning guest RAM pages and IOMMU DMAR tables.