Authors:

Doron Fediuck

Einav Cohen

Eli Mesika

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memory-balloon

Introduction

Memory balloon is a guest device, which may be used to re-distribute / reclaim the host memory based on VM needs in a dynamic way. In this way it’s possible to create memory over commitment states.

Current status

Currently the balloon memory device is being created by default by libvirt for non RHEV environments, and VDSM disables it by default for RHEV. This change will enable the balloon device, supporting oVirt’s MOM sub-project integration^[1].

Engine core

Backend-ui/rest parts
- A new VM attribute - balloonEnabled - will be added VM & VmStatic BE to support this feature.
  - The attribute is not persistant in vm_static table and clients should call the IsBalloonEnabledQuery to get the value from vm_device.
  - Default value should be True.
  - This attribute should be handled in addVmCommand(s)
- Add a device
- Also in UpdateVmCommand to add or remove the device.
- Need to add as a parameter in RunOnce to override existing vm_static.
- Template editing: resource allocation is currently unsupported.

Backend-vdsm parts
- AddVmCommand and all those inheriting it, should handle the balloon in copyVmDevices method.
- VmDeviceType should add the new device.
  - This means, updating org.ovirt.engine.core.common.utils.VmDeviceCommonUtils.isSpecialDevice to make sure the balloon becomes a managed device.
- VdsProperties should add model ‘none’ if needed
- VmInfoBuilder should add buildVmMemoryBalloon
- org.ovirt.engine.core.vdsbroker.vdsbroker.CreateBrokerVDSCommand.buildVmData() should call the new buildVmMemoryBalloon method.
OVF
- Handle ovf reader and writer.
DB Upgrade
- Existing VM’s should set enableBalloon value to False.
Validations
- This should be acceptable on 3.1 cluster only, as older vds versions will not support it.

VDSM

VDSM already supports memory balloon as a device, and the following API should be used:

{'type': 'balloon ',
'device':'memballoon ',
'model': 'virtio' },     <--- 'none' may/should be used to disable the device.

Rest API

A simple flag should be added in the relevant actions.

For cluster:
```
"ballooningEnabled" : "false"
```
Click here for cluster struct

For memory policy:
```
"ballooning" : "true"
```
Click here for memory policy struct

UI

In relevant dialog we need a check box, for the user to enable/disable the device.
- Mock-ups:

Validations
- This should be acceptable on 3.1 cluster only, as older vds versions will not support it.

Notes

Due to API change, This will be supported in 3.1 clusters only.