QEMU has entered softfreeze for 5.1, so it is time to summarize the s390x changes in that version.

Protected virtualization

One of the biggest features on the s390/KVM side in Linux 5.7 had been protected virtualization aka secure execution, which basically restricts the (untrusted) hypervisor from accessing all of the guest’s memory and delegates many tasks to the (trusted) ultravisor. QEMU 5.1 introduces the QEMU part of the feature.

In order to be able to run protected guests, you need to run on a z15 or a Linux One III, with at least a 5.7 kernel. You also need an up-to-date s390-tools installation. Some details are available in the QEMU documentation. For more information about what protected virtualization is, watch this talk from KVM Forum 2019 and this talk from 36C3.

vfio-ccw

vfio-ccw has also seen some improvements over the last release cycle.

• Requests that do not explicitly allow prefetching in the ORB are no longer rejected out of hand (although the kernel may still do so, if you run a pre-5.7 version.) The rationale behind this is that most device drivers never modify their channel programs dynamically, and the one common code path that does (IPL from DASD) is already accommodated by the s390-ccw bios. While you can instruct QEMU to ignore the prefetch requirement for selected devices, this is an additional administrative complication for little benefit; it is therefore no longer required.
• In order to be able to relay changes in channel path status to the guest, two new regions have been added: a schib region to relay real data to stsch, and a crw region to relay channel reports. If, for example, a channel path is varied off on the host, all guests using a vfio-ccw device that uses this channel path now get a proper channel report for it.

Other changes

Other than the bigger features mentioned above, there have been the usual fixes, improvements, and cleanups, both in the main s390x QEMU code and in the s390-ccw bios.