Friday, June 24, 2016

KVM Forum 2016

The schedule of the KVM Forum 2016, to be held August 24-26 in Toronto, is out here.
We (KVM on z project) will be hosting three sessions:

Friday, June 10, 2016

qclib v1.2.0 released

New version qclib v1.2.0 was released on IBM developerWorks here.
Among others, this version adds additional counts for KVM hosts and guests as follows:
  • For KVM hosts: Counts for CPs, IFLs and CPUs (sum of CPs and IFLs)
  • For KVM guests: CP and IFL counts
Below is some (edited) output of the sample program qc_test (part of the library), highlighting the new attributes for a KVM host with 4 IFLs and a guest with 2 virtual IFLs. See the README for documentation and further details.
        ===== Layer 3: KVM-hypervisor ==========================
                 qc_layer_type [n/a]: KVM-hypervisor
             qc_layer_category [n/a]: HOST
             qc_layer_type_num [n/a]: 6
         qc_layer_category_num [n/a]: 2
         qc_control_program_id [S  ]: KVM/Linux
                 qc_adjustment [S  ]: 1000

              qc_num_cpu_total [  V]: 4
          qc_num_cpu_dedicated [SHV]: 0
             qc_num_cpu_shared [SHV]: 4
               qc_num_cp_total [ HV]: 0
           qc_num_cp_dedicated [ hV]: 0
              qc_num_cp_shared [ hV]: 0
              qc_num_ifl_total [SHV]: 4
          qc_num_ifl_dedicated [ShV]: 0
             qc_num_ifl_shared [ShV]: 4

        ===================================================

          ===== Layer 4: KVM-guest
    ==========================
                   qc_layer_type [n/a]: KVM-guest
               qc_layer_category [n/a]: GUEST
               qc_layer_type_num [n/a]: 7
           qc_layer_category_num [n/a]: 1
                   qc_layer_name [S  ]: u1604
          qc_layer_extended_name [S  ]: u1604
                   qc_layer_uuid [S  ]: 407d134c-7d93-4a7b-bd27-4568ef10e85a

                qc_num_cpu_total [S  ]: 2
           qc_num_cpu_configured [S  ]: 2
              qc_num_cpu_standby [S  ]: 0
             qc_num_cpu_reserved [S  ]: 0
            qc_num_cpu_dedicated [S  ]: 0
               qc_num_cpu_shared [S  ]: 2
                qc_num_ifl_total [S  ]: 2
            qc_num_ifl_dedicated [S  ]: 0
               qc_num_ifl_shared [S  ]: 2
            qc_ifl_dispatch_type [SHV]: 3

         
    ===================================================

    qclib is a C library providing access to system information on the various layers of virtualization on z Systems.

    KVM for IBM z Systems Feature Requests

    In case you are missing a feature in IBM's own Linux distribution KVM for IBM z Systems, you can now join the RFE (Request for Enhancement) community on developerWorks to file your request!
    Use the following query in the community to list all requests against KVM for IBM z Systems:

    Monday, June 6, 2016

    libvirt 1.3.5 released

    libvirt v1.3.5 is now available for download at the libvirt project website.
    The list of highlights improving z Systems platform support is as follows:
    • virt-host-validate: Added support for the s390 platform. This tool detects virtualization capabilities of a host, and can verify capabilities for a specific hypervisor such as QEMU.
    • Added a panic device model for s390. This new device model allows to represent the z Systems architecture's guest panic capabilities. A panic device is useful to receive guest panic events.

    Wednesday, June 1, 2016

    QEMU 2.6 released

    QEMU 2.6 has been released. In addition to the many improvements provided by the community, here is a list of the new features with most relevance for KVM on z:
    • On z Systems, it is now possible to IPL from virtio-scsi attached disks and disk images.
    • CPU hotplug: CPU hotplugging via command cpu-add now works on z Systems.
    • Postcopy: We made sure that this feature provided by the community is supported on z Systems from the first day after losing its experimental status.
    • The script dump-guest-memory.py now works on z Systems.
    • PCI passthrough support continues to see improvements, but is not yet ready for production use.

    Welcome

    Welcome to the KVM on z blog! The primary focus will be upstream news for open source projects Linux, QEMU and libvirt with relevance to KVM on IBM z Systems, but we will touch other areas as well.