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| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/virtual/kvm/api.txt | 17 |
1 files changed, 17 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/virtual/kvm/api.txt b/Documentation/virtual/kvm/api.txt index 88ecbc7645db..f39969d0121e 100644 --- a/Documentation/virtual/kvm/api.txt +++ b/Documentation/virtual/kvm/api.txt @@ -69,6 +69,23 @@ by and on behalf of the VM's process may not be freed/unaccounted when the VM is shut down. +It is important to note that althought VM ioctls may only be issued from +the process that created the VM, a VM's lifecycle is associated with its +file descriptor, not its creator (process). In other words, the VM and +its resources, *including the associated address space*, are not freed +until the last reference to the VM's file descriptor has been released. +For example, if fork() is issued after ioctl(KVM_CREATE_VM), the VM will +not be freed until both the parent (original) process and its child have +put their references to the VM's file descriptor. + +Because a VM's resources are not freed until the last reference to its +file descriptor is released, creating additional references to a VM via +via fork(), dup(), etc... without careful consideration is strongly +discouraged and may have unwanted side effects, e.g. memory allocated +by and on behalf of the VM's process may not be freed/unaccounted when +the VM is shut down. + + 3. Extensions ------------- |