## QEMU Migration Phases

Contents

- QEMU Migration Phases

  - Migration protocol v2 API Sequence

  - Migration protocol v3 API Sequence

- QEMU Migration Locking Rules

QEMU supports only migration protocols 2 and 3 (1 was lacking too many steps). Repeating the protocol sequences from libvirt.c:

### Migration protocol v2 API Sequence

> Src: DumpXML

>   - Generate XML to pass to dst

> Dst: Prepare

>   - Get ready to accept incoming VM

>   - Generate optional cookie to pass to src

> Src: Perform

>   - Start migration and wait for send completion

>   - Kill off VM if successful, resume if failed

> Dst: Finish

>   - Wait for recv completion and check status

>   - Kill off VM if unsuccessful

### Migration protocol v3 API Sequence

> Src: Begin

>   - Generate XML to pass to dst

>   - Generate optional cookie to pass to dst

> Dst: Prepare

>   - Get ready to accept incoming VM

>   - Generate optional cookie to pass to src

> Src: Perform

>   - Start migration and wait for send completion

>   - Generate optional cookie to pass to dst

> Dst: Finish

>   - Wait for recv completion and check status

>   - Kill off VM if failed, resume if success

>   - Generate optional cookie to pass to src

> Src: Confirm

>   - Kill off VM if success, resume if failed

## QEMU Migration Locking Rules

Migration is a complicated beast which may span across several APIs on both source and destination side and we need to keep the domain we are migrating in a consistent state during the whole process.

To avoid anyone from changing the domain in the middle of migration we need to keep MIGRATION_OUT job active during migration from Begin to Confirm on the source side and MIGRATION_IN job has to be active from Prepare to Finish on the destination side.

For this purpose we introduce several helper methods to deal with locking primitives (described in qemu-threads) in the right way:

- qemuMigrationJobStart

- qemuMigrationJobContinue

- qemuMigrationJobStartPhase

- qemuMigrationJobSetPhase

- qemuMigrationJobFinish

The sequence of calling qemuMigrationJob* helper methods is as follows:

- The first API of a migration protocol (Prepare or Perform/Begin depending on migration type and version) has to start migration job and keep it active:

      qemuMigrationJobStart(driver, vm, VIR_JOB_MIGRATION_{IN,OUT});
      qemuMigrationJobSetPhase(driver, vm, QEMU_MIGRATION_PHASE_*);
      ...do work...
      qemuMigrationJobContinue(vm);

- All consequent phases except for the last one have to keep the job active:

      if (!qemuMigrationJobIsActive(vm, VIR_JOB_MIGRATION_{IN,OUT}))
          return;
      qemuMigrationJobStartPhase(driver, vm, QEMU_MIGRATION_PHASE_*);
      ...do work...
      qemuMigrationJobContinue(vm);

- The last migration phase finally finishes the migration job:

      if (!qemuMigrationJobIsActive(vm, VIR_JOB_MIGRATION_{IN,OUT}))
          return;
      qemuMigrationJobStartPhase(driver, vm, QEMU_MIGRATION_PHASE_*);
      ...do work...
      qemuMigrationJobFinish(driver, vm);

While migration job is running (i.e., after qemuMigrationJobStart* but before qemuMigrationJob{Continue,Finish}), migration phase can be advanced using:

    qemuMigrationJobSetPhase(driver, vm, QEMU_MIGRATION_PHASE_*);