cl-os.tex

540 & 11 Oct 2015 & Greg Kurz & {virtqueues: fix
trivial typo

See
\ref{sec:Basic Facilities of a Virtio Device / Virtqueues / Virtqueue Interrupt Suppression}.
} \\
\hline
541 & 11 Oct 2015 & Paolo Bonzini & {virtio-blk: fix typo
in legacy framing requirements section

See
\ref{sec:Device Types / Block Device / Legacy Interface: Framing Requirements}.
} \\
\hline
545 & 18 Oct 2015 & Paolo Bonzini & {virtio-blk: restore VIRTIO_BLK_F_FLUSH and VIRTIO_BLK_F_CONFIG_WCE

VIRTIO_BLK_F_CONFIG_WCE is important in order to achieve good performance
(up to 2x, though more realistically +30-40\%) in latency-bound workloads.
However, it was removed by mistake together with VIRTIO_BLK_F_FLUSH.

In addition, even removing VIRTIO_BLK_F_FLUSH was probably not a great
idea, because it simplifies simple drivers (e.g. firmware) that are okay
with a writethrough cache but still need data to persist after power loss.
What really should have been removed is just the possibility that devices
not propose VIRTIO_BLK_F_FLUSH, but even that only deserves a "SHOULD" in
the new world of conformance statements.

Restore these, with the following changes:

* clarify and use conformance statements in order to define writeback
and writethrough caching according to what is commonly done by high-end
storage.

* clarify (with conformance statements) the influence of the
VIRTIO_BLK_F_FLUSH feature on caching and how to proceed if only one of
VIRTIO_BLK_F_FLUSH and VIRTIO_BLK_F_CONFIG_WCE is negotiated.

* strengthen the requirement for persisting writes to MUST after
a VIRTIO_BLK_T_FLUSH request (and in other cases too involving the
new features).

The suggested behavior upon feature negotiation is okay for the Linux
implementation of virtio1, even after the implementation is modified to
support the two new features.

This fixes VIRTIO-144.

See \ref{sec:Device Types / Block Device},
\ref{sec:Conformance / Driver Conformance / Block Driver Conformance} and
\ref{sec:Conformance / Device Conformance / Block Device Conformance}.
} \\
\hline
546 & 18 Oct 2015 & Michael S. Tsirkin & {pci: clarify configuration access capability rules

The point of the configuration access capability is to enable
access to other capabilities.  The intent never was to allow
writes to a random place within device BARs.
Limiting drivers simplifies devices - and devices can always
add another capability if drivers ever want to access
some other range.

This resolves VIRTIO-145.

See \ref{drivernormative:Virtio Transport Options / Virtio Over
PCI Bus / PCI Device Layout / PCI configuration access
capability}.
} \\
\hline
547 & 18 Oct 2015 & Michael S. Tsirkin & {add advice on transition from legacy interfaces

Reading legacy chapters gives a hint about what changed,
let's help readers discover this useful shortcut.

This resolves VIRTIO-146.

See \ref{sec:Transition from earlier specification drafts}.
} \\
\hline