[PATCH] docs/migration: Update postcopy bits

[Peter Xu]

We have postcopy recovery but not reflected in the document, do an update
for that.

Add a very small section on postcopy preempt.

Touch up the pagemap section, dropping the unsent map because it's already
been dropped in the source code in commit 1e7cf8c323 ("migration/postcopy:
unsentmap is not necessary for postcopy").

Signed-off-by: Peter Xu <peterx@redhat.com>
---
 docs/devel/migration.rst | 89 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----------
 1 file changed, 65 insertions(+), 24 deletions(-)

diff --git a/docs/devel/migration.rst b/docs/devel/migration.rst
index 6f65c23b47..6ed485ae38 100644
--- a/docs/devel/migration.rst
+++ b/docs/devel/migration.rst
@@ -721,6 +721,42 @@ processing.
    is no longer used by migration, while the listen thread carries on servicing
    page data until the end of migration.
 
+Postcopy Recovery
+-----------------
+
+Comparing to precopy, postcopy is special on error handlings.  When any
+error happens (in this case, mostly network errors), QEMU cannot easily
+fail a migration because VM data resides in both source and destination
+QEMU instances.  On the other hand, when issue happens QEMU on both sides
+will go into a paused state.  It'll need a recovery phase to continue a
+paused postcopy migration.
+
+The recovery phase normally contains a few steps:
+
+  - When network issue occurs, both QEMU will go into PAUSED state
+
+  - When the network is recovered (or a new network is provided), the admin
+    can setup the new channel for migration using QMP command
+    'migrate-recover' on destination node, preparing for a resume.
+
+  - On source host, the admin can continue the interrupted postcopy
+    migration using QMP command 'migrate' with resume=true flag set.
+
+  - After the connection is re-established, QEMU will continue the postcopy
+    migration on both sides.
+
+During a paused postcopy migration, the VM can logically still continue
+running, and it will not be impacted from any page access to pages that
+were already migrated to destination VM before the interruption happens.
+However, if any of the missing pages got accessed on destination VM, the VM
+thread will be halted waiting for the page to be migrated, it means it can
+be halted until the recovery is complete.
+
+The impact of accessing missing pages can be relevant to different
+configurations of the guest.  For example, when with async page fault
+enabled, logically the guest can proactively schedule out the threads
+accessing missing pages.
+
 Postcopy states
 ---------------
 
@@ -765,36 +801,31 @@ ADVISE->DISCARD->LISTEN->RUNNING->END
     (although it can't do the cleanup it would do as it
     finishes a normal migration).
 
+ - Paused
+
+    Postcopy can run into a paused state (normally on both sides when
+    happens), where all threads will be temporarily halted mostly due to
+    network errors.  When reaching paused state, migration will make sure
+    the qemu binary on both sides maintain the data without corrupting
+    the VM.  To continue the migration, the admin needs to fix the
+    migration channel using the QMP command 'migrate-recover' on the
+    destination node, then resume the migration using QMP command 'migrate'
+    again on source node, with resume=true flag set.
+
  - End
 
     The listen thread can now quit, and perform the cleanup of migration
     state, the migration is now complete.
 
-Source side page maps
----------------------
+Source side page map
+--------------------
 
-The source side keeps two bitmaps during postcopy; 'the migration bitmap'
-and 'unsent map'.  The 'migration bitmap' is basically the same as in
-the precopy case, and holds a bit to indicate that page is 'dirty' -
-i.e. needs sending.  During the precopy phase this is updated as the CPU
-dirties pages, however during postcopy the CPUs are stopped and nothing
-should dirty anything any more.
-
-The 'unsent map' is used for the transition to postcopy. It is a bitmap that
-has a bit cleared whenever a page is sent to the destination, however during
-the transition to postcopy mode it is combined with the migration bitmap
-to form a set of pages that:
-
-   a) Have been sent but then redirtied (which must be discarded)
-   b) Have not yet been sent - which also must be discarded to cause any
-      transparent huge pages built during precopy to be broken.
-
-Note that the contents of the unsentmap are sacrificed during the calculation
-of the discard set and thus aren't valid once in postcopy.  The dirtymap
-is still valid and is used to ensure that no page is sent more than once.  Any
-request for a page that has already been sent is ignored.  Duplicate requests
-such as this can happen as a page is sent at about the same time the
-destination accesses it.
+The 'migration bitmap' in postcopy is basically the same as in the precopy,
+where each of the bit to indicate that page is 'dirty' - i.e. needs
+sending.  During the precopy phase this is updated as the CPU dirties
+pages, however during postcopy the CPUs are stopped and nothing should
+dirty anything any more. Instead, dirty bits are cleared when the relevant
+pages are sent during postcopy.
 
 Postcopy with hugepages
 -----------------------
@@ -853,6 +884,16 @@ Retro-fitting postcopy to existing clients is possible:
      guest memory access is made while holding a lock then all other
      threads waiting for that lock will also be blocked.
 
+Postcopy Preemption Mode
+------------------------
+
+Postcopy preempt is a new capability introduced in 8.0 QEMU release, it
+allows urgent pages (those got page fault requested from destination QEMU
+explicitly) to be sent in a separate preempt channel, rather than queued in
+the background migration channel.  Anyone who cares about latencies of page
+faults during a postcopy migration should enable this feature.  By default,
+it's not enabled.
+
 Firmware
 ========
 
-- 
2.40.1