Documentation/virt/kvm/devices/xics.txt

XICS interrupt controller

Device type supported: KVM_DEV_TYPE_XICS

Groups:
  1. KVM_DEV_XICS_GRP_SOURCES
  Attributes: One per interrupt source, indexed by the source number.

  2. KVM_DEV_XICS_GRP_CTRL
  Attributes:
    2.1 KVM_DEV_XICS_NR_SERVERS (write only)
  The kvm_device_attr.addr points to a __u32 value which is the number of
  interrupt server numbers (ie, highest possible vcpu id plus one).
  Errors:
    -EINVAL: Value greater than KVM_MAX_VCPU_ID.
    -EFAULT: Invalid user pointer for attr->addr.
    -EBUSY:  A vcpu is already connected to the device.

This device emulates the XICS (eXternal Interrupt Controller
Specification) defined in PAPR.  The XICS has a set of interrupt
sources, each identified by a 20-bit source number, and a set of
Interrupt Control Presentation (ICP) entities, also called "servers",
each associated with a virtual CPU.

The ICP entities are created by enabling the KVM_CAP_IRQ_ARCH
capability for each vcpu, specifying KVM_CAP_IRQ_XICS in args[0] and
the interrupt server number (i.e. the vcpu number from the XICS's
point of view) in args[1] of the kvm_enable_cap struct.  Each ICP has
64 bits of state which can be read and written using the
KVM_GET_ONE_REG and KVM_SET_ONE_REG ioctls on the vcpu.  The 64 bit
state word has the following bitfields, starting at the
least-significant end of the word:

* Unused, 16 bits

* Pending interrupt priority, 8 bits
  Zero is the highest priority, 255 means no interrupt is pending.

* Pending IPI (inter-processor interrupt) priority, 8 bits
  Zero is the highest priority, 255 means no IPI is pending.

* Pending interrupt source number, 24 bits
  Zero means no interrupt pending, 2 means an IPI is pending

* Current processor priority, 8 bits
  Zero is the highest priority, meaning no interrupts can be
  delivered, and 255 is the lowest priority.

Each source has 64 bits of state that can be read and written using
the KVM_GET_DEVICE_ATTR and KVM_SET_DEVICE_ATTR ioctls, specifying the
KVM_DEV_XICS_GRP_SOURCES attribute group, with the attribute number being
the interrupt source number.  The 64 bit state word has the following
bitfields, starting from the least-significant end of the word:

* Destination (server number), 32 bits
  This specifies where the interrupt should be sent, and is the
  interrupt server number specified for the destination vcpu.

* Priority, 8 bits
  This is the priority specified for this interrupt source, where 0 is
  the highest priority and 255 is the lowest.  An interrupt with a
  priority of 255 will never be delivered.

* Level sensitive flag, 1 bit
  This bit is 1 for a level-sensitive interrupt source, or 0 for
  edge-sensitive (or MSI).

* Masked flag, 1 bit
  This bit is set to 1 if the interrupt is masked (cannot be delivered
  regardless of its priority), for example by the ibm,int-off RTAS
  call, or 0 if it is not masked.

* Pending flag, 1 bit
  This bit is 1 if the source has a pending interrupt, otherwise 0.

Only one XICS instance may be created per VM.