Migration

Introduction

KVM currently supports savevm/loadvm and offline or live migration Migration commands are given when in qemu-monitor (Alt-Ctrl-2). Upon successful completion, the migrated VM continues to run on the destination host.

Note

You can migrate a guest between an AMD host to an Intel host and back. Naturally, a 64-bit guest can only be migrated to a 64-bit host, but a 32-bit guest can be migrated at will.

There are some older Intel processors which don't support NX (or XD), which may cause problems in a cluster which includes NX-supporting hosts. To disable NX for a given guest, start it with such a parameter: -cpu qemu64,-nx

Requirements

• The VM image is accessible on both source and destination hosts (located on a shared storage, e.g. using nfs).
• It is recommended an images-directory would be found on the same path on both hosts (for migrations of a copy-on-write image -- an image created on top of a base-image using "qemu-image create -b ...")
• The src and dst hosts must be on the same subnet (keeping guest's network when tap is used).
• Do not use -snapshot qemu command line option.
• For tcp: migration protocol
• the guest on the destination must be started the same way it was started on the source.

highlights / merits

• Almost unnoticeable guest down time
• Guest is not involved (unique to KVM Live Migration [#1 1])
• Capability to tunnel VM state through an external program (unique to KVM Live Migration [#1 1])
• ssh/gzip/bzip2/gpg/your own
• Upon success guest continues to run on destination host, upon failure guest continues to run on source host (with one exception)
• Short and Simple
• Easy to enhance
• Hardware independence (almost).
• Support for migration of stopped (paused) VMs.
• Open

Anchor(1) 1 These features are unique to KVM Live Migration as far as I know. If you know of other hypervisor that support any of them please update this page or let me (Uri) know.

User Interface

The user interface is through the qemu monitor (alt-ctrl-2 on the SDL window)

Management

migrate [-d] <URI>
migrate_cancel    

The '-d' will let you query the status of the migration.

With no '-d' the monitor prompt returns when the migration completes. URI can be one of 'exec:<command>' or tcp:<ip:port>

Status

info migrate 

Migration Parameters

migrate_set_speed <speed>   set bandwidth control parameters (max transfer rate per second)

Example / HOWTO

A is the source host, B is the destination host:

TCP example:

1. Start the VM on B with the exact same parameters as the VM on A, in migration-listen mode:

B: <qemu-command-line> -incoming tcp:0:4444 (or other PORT))

2. Start the migration (always on the source host):

A: migrate -d tcp:B:4444 (or other PORT)

3. Check the status (on A only):

A: (qemu) info migrate                   

Offline example:

1. unlimit bandwidth used for migration:

A: migrate_set_speed 1g                

2. stop the guest:

A: stop                                

3. continue with either TCP or exec migration as described above.

Problems / Todo

• TSC offset on the new host must be set in such a way that the guest sees a monotonically increasing TSC, otherwise the guest may hang indefinitely after migration.
• usbdevice tablet complains after migration.
• handle migration completion better (especially when network problems occur).
• More informative status.
• Migration does not work while CPU real-mode/protected mode are still changing.

savevm/loadvm to an external state file (using pseudo-migration)

• To be supported directly by Migration Protocols, but until then...
• Save VM state into a compressed file
  • Save

stop                                                               
migrate_set_speed 4095m                                            
migrate "exec:gzip -c > STATEFILE.gz"                              

• • Load

gzip -c -d STATEFILE.gz | <qemu-command-line> -incoming "exec: cat"   or
<qemu-command-line> -incoming "exec: gzip -c -d STATEFILE.gz"

• Save VM State into an encrypted file (assumes KEY has already been generated)
  • Save

stop                                                                          
migrate_set_speed 4095m
migrate "exec:gpg -q -e -r KEY -o STATFILE.gpg"

• Load VM state from an encrypted file

gpg -q -d -r KEY STATEFILE.gpg | <qemu-command-line> -incoming "exec:cat"

more exec: options

• Send encrypted VM state from host A to host B (Note: ssh is probably better, this is just for show)

• • on host A

migrate "exec:gpg -q -e -r KEY | nc B 4444"

• • on host B

nc -l 4444 | gpg -q -d -r KEY | <qemu-command-line> -incoming "exec:cat"

Algorithm (the short version)

1. Setup

• Start guest on destination, connect, enable dirty page logging and more

2. Transfer Memory

• Guest continues to run
• Bandwidth limitation (controlled by the user)
• First transfer the whole memory
• Iteratively transfer all dirty pages (pages that were written to by the guest).

3. Stop the guest

• And sync VM image(s) (guest's hard drives).

4. Transfer State

• As fast as possible (no bandwidth limitation)
• All VM devices' state and dirty pages yet to be transferred

5. Continue the guest

• On destination upon success
  • Broadcast "I'm over here" Ethernet packet to announce new location of NIC(s).
• On source upon failure (with one exception).

Instructions for kvm-13 and below: MigrationQemu0.8.2.