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| author | Arthur Hanson Rasmusson <arthur@vgpu.io> | 2026-10-12 00:32:00 -0400 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Arthur Hanson Rasmusson <arthur@vgpu.io> | 2026-10-12 00:32:00 -0400 |
| commit | 5df3147130c9254cd5bea34b330a2a42ee51d635 (patch) | |
| tree | 6a8fdf54bbb291eaccbeef8334e2cdd70af2caa8 /wiki/Reference-Glossary.md | |
| parent | f1edf479a167898aaf70dc8f21e9cf18bccbe112 (diff) | |
| download | open-iov-5df3147130c9254cd5bea34b330a2a42ee51d635.tar.gz open-iov-5df3147130c9254cd5bea34b330a2a42ee51d635.zip | |
site: open-iov.org 2026 documentation update
- tools/site: Markdown-to-MediaWiki converter (tracked-paths-only link
mapping, local-marker scan, About-message insert), WikiBot publisher
with diff/check modes and publish manifest, live site auditor, image
uploader, site-only page sources (landing page, About, index, sidebar,
banner templates, About-message template).
- wiki: new public deep-dive sources (project status, install, FAQ,
system overview, GSP and GSP-RM, execution frontier, host module,
guest stack, UVM, physical backend, driver lifecycle, risc-v-gsp-rm-debugger,
hardware/software matrix, HAAEEP, glossary); refreshed CUDA userspace
status; corrected cross-document links; README rewritten for the new set.
- wiki/.publish-manifest.json records each published revision for rollback.
Diffstat (limited to 'wiki/Reference-Glossary.md')
| -rw-r--r-- | wiki/Reference-Glossary.md | 76 |
1 files changed, 76 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/wiki/Reference-Glossary.md b/wiki/Reference-Glossary.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cb659ae --- /dev/null +++ b/wiki/Reference-Glossary.md @@ -0,0 +1,76 @@ +# Glossary + +> **What this page is.** The terms used across this wiki, the project's +> documents and its logs. Condensed from +> [`../docs/09-reference/glossary-and-faq.md`](../docs/09-reference/glossary-and-faq.md); +> the docs tree wins on disagreement. For questions, see [`FAQ.md`](FAQ.md). + +Status: 2026-10-12, tree `master @ 2f066727`. + +## GPU, driver and virtualization + +| Term | Meaning | +|---|---| +| **BAR0 / BAR1 / BAR3** | PCI BAR windows of the GPU: register interface (16 MB), VRAM aperture (256 MB), instance/PRAMIN window. | +| **CUDASW** | The family of NVIDIA user-space software between applications and the driver: `libcuda`, `libcudart`, the JIT compiler, the fatbinary loader, and friends. | +| **Doorbell** | A register or memory location a driver writes to signal "new work is available" for a channel or queue. | +| **mdev** | Mediated device: the kernel mechanism that turns a physical device into virtual instances (VFIO). | +| **vGPU** | Virtual GPU: the device this project presents to a guest. | +| **SRIOV / VF** | Single-root I/O virtualization / virtual functions (hardware partitioning). | +| **IOMMU / SMMU** | Platform DMA translation and isolation (Intel VT-d / AMD-Vi / ARM SMMU). | + +## GSP, firmware and the RM + +| Term | Meaning | +|---|---| +| **GSP** | GPU System Processor: the embedded RISC-V (RV64IMAC) that runs firmware containing the Resource Manager. | +| **GSP-RM** | The Resource Manager running on the GSP (the "self-hosted RM"). | +| **RM / RM API** | NVIDIA's Resource Manager and the API used to allocate objects and issue controls. | +| **RMCore** | The RM's object system: classes, handles, parents, methods. | +| **resserv / resource server** | The RM component that owns allocation authority, privileges and lifetimes. | +| **FWSEC** | Firmware security processor stage of the GSP boot sequence. | +| **WPR** | Write-Protected Region: the VRAM area reserved for firmware. | +| **MSGQ** | The GSP message-queue transport: shared-memory element rings with a page table, plus doorbells. | +| **VGX version** | The version the guest announces during RPC negotiation; it selects message layouts. | +| **Reply fidelity** | How completely an emulated reply matches what real hardware returns, as a ladder: status-only → coherent zeroed params → coherent values for consumed fields → exact values. | + +## Execution engines and memory + +| Term | Meaning | +|---|---| +| **CE** | Copy Engine: a DMA engine; also used for UVM's internal work. | +| **GR** | The graphics/compute engine that executes shaders (graphics pipelines and CUDA kernels). | +| **SEC2** | Secure copy engine used by UVM for protected operations. | +| **GPFIFO** | GPU FIFO: a ring of entries, each pointing to a push buffer for a channel. | +| **Push buffer** | A stream of method calls (engine commands) submitted via a GPFIFO. | +| **PBDMA** | The push-buffer DMA engine in the host scheduler that fetches and executes push buffers. | +| **QMD** | Queue Meta Data: the per-launch descriptor a GR channel reads to execute a kernel grid. | +| **USERD** | Per-channel control block in VRAM: PUT/GET pointers and control state. | +| **Runlist** | The scheduler's list of channels eligible to run. | +| **TSG** | Time-Slice Group: channels sharing a scheduling slot. | +| **Engine record / engine list** | The per-engine descriptors (kind, instance, class, client type) the driver walks after `GPU_GET_ENGINES`; each must be self-consistent or the driver rewrites the following allocation. | +| **GMMU** | GPU Memory Management Unit: page tables, TLB, fault handling. | +| **PDB** | Page Directory Base: root of a GPU page table. | +| **PDE / PTE** | Page-directory entry / page-table entry. | +| **UVM** | NVIDIA's unified memory module: VA spaces, page trees, faults, channel manager ([`UVM-in-the-Guest.md`](UVM-in-the-Guest.md)). | +| **VA / PA / GPA / IOVA** | Virtual address / physical address / guest physical address / I/O virtual address. | +| **vidmem / sysmem / aperture** | GPU local memory / system memory / how an address is qualified. | +| **Semaphore / tracker** | A memory location written by the GPU to signal progress; UVM's tracker waits on it. | +| **AMAPlib** | NVIDIA's shared "address mapping" library: swizzling, bank/channel mapping, aperture rules. | +| **HAL** | Hardware abstraction layer: per-generation functions that program registers and formats. | +| **Class list (classDB)** | The RM classes reported as supported; engine queries are filtered against it, so the class list, engine list and capability controls must agree. | + +## Method and tooling + +| Term | Meaning | +|---|---| +| **Host oracle / A-B harness** | The same query or deterministic workload run against a bare-metal host driver and inside the guest, then diffed — the reference for what the guest should have seen. | +| **File virtual address (`libcuda+0x...`)** | An address relative to the start of a shared object file, as distinct from a runtime mapping or a disassembler program address. | +| **Session (risc-v-gsp-rm-debugger)** | A recorded run of the firmware workbench — the unit of evidence ([`Riscv-GSP-RM-Debugger.md`](Riscv-GSP-RM-Debugger.md)). | + +## Related pages + +* [`FAQ.md`](FAQ.md) +* [`System-Overview.md`](System-Overview.md) +* [`GSP-and-GSP-RM.md`](GSP-and-GSP-RM.md) +* [`Introduction-to-GMMU.md`](Introduction-to-GMMU.md) |
