.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 Message Queues ============== Message queue is a simple low-capacity IPC channel between two virtual machines. It is intended for sending small control and configuration messages. Each message queue is unidirectional and buffered in the hypervisor. A full-duplex IPC channel requires a pair of queues. The size of the queue and the maximum size of the message that can be passed is fixed at creation of the message queue. Resource manager is presently the only use case for message queues, and creates messages queues between itself and VMs with a fixed maximum message size of 240 bytes. Longer messages require a further protocol on top of the message queue messages themselves. For instance, communication with the resource manager adds a header field for sending longer messages which are split into smaller fragments. The diagram below shows how message queue works. A typical configuration involves 2 message queues. Message queue 1 allows VM_A to send messages to VM_B. Message queue 2 allows VM_B to send messages to VM_A. 1. VM_A sends a message of up to 240 bytes in length. It makes a hypercall with the message to request the hypervisor to add the message to message queue 1's queue. The hypervisor copies memory into the internal message queue buffer; the memory doesn't need to be shared between VM_A and VM_B. 2. Gunyah raises the corresponding interrupt for VM_B (Rx vIRQ) when any of these happens: a. gunyah_msgq_send() has PUSH flag. This is a typical case when the message queue is being used to implement an RPC-like interface. b. Explicitly with gunyah_msgq_push hypercall from VM_A. c. Message queue has reached a threshold depth. Typically, this threshold depth is the size of the queue (in other words: when queue is full, Rx vIRQ is raised). 3. VM_B calls gunyah_msgq_recv() and Gunyah copies message to requested buffer. 4. Gunyah raises the corresponding interrupt for VM_A (Tx vIRQ) when the message queue falls below a watermark depth. Typically, this is when the queue is drained. Note the watermark depth and the threshold depth for the Rx vIRQ are independent values. Coincidentally, this signal is conceptually similar to Clear-to-Send. For VM_B to send a message to VM_A, the process is identical, except that hypercalls reference message queue 2's capability ID. The IRQ will be different for the second message queue. :: +-------------------+ +-----------------+ +-------------------+ | VM_A | |Gunyah hypervisor| | VM_B | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Tx | | | | | |-------->| | Rx vIRQ | | |gunyah_msgq_send() | Tx vIRQ |Message queue 1 |-------->|gunyah_msgq_recv() | | |<------- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Tx | | | | Rx vIRQ | |<--------| | |gunyah_msgq_recv() |<--------|Message queue 2 | Tx vIRQ |gunyah_msgq_send() | | | | |-------->| | | | | | | | | | | | | | +-------------------+ +-----------------+ +---------------+