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xen-devel
RE: [Xen-devel] [PATCH RFC 1/3] virtio infrastructure
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To: |
"Santos, Jose Renato G" <joserenato.santos@xxxxxx> |
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Subject: |
RE: [Xen-devel] [PATCH RFC 1/3] virtio infrastructure |
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From: |
Rusty Russell <rusty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> |
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Date: |
Tue, 05 Jun 2007 11:44:52 +1000 |
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Cc: |
Jimi Xenidis <jimix@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Stephen Rothwell <sfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Xen Mailing List <xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, jmk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Herbert Xu <herbert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, kvm-devel <kvm-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, virtualization <virtualization@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Christian Borntraeger <cborntra@xxxxxxxxxx>, Suzanne McIntosh <skranjac@xxxxxxxxxx>, Anthony Liguori <anthony@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Martin Schwidefsky <schwidefsky@xxxxxxxxxx> |
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Mon, 04 Jun 2007 18:43:26 -0700 |
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On Mon, 2007-06-04 at 21:14 +0000, Santos, Jose Renato G wrote:
> Thanks for clarifying your thinking. This helped me understand
> your goals better.
> I agree it would be nice to reduce the number of drivers as it
> improves mantainability. However I am not convinced that
> adding an IO virtualization layer will remove the need
> for having different drivers for different virtualization
> technologies.
> It seems that we will still need specific devices drivers
> for each different virtualization flavor. For example,
> we will still need to have a specific Xen netfront
> device that talks to a backend device in dom0, using
> page grants, and other Xen specific mechanisms.
Hi Renato,
That definitely should be implementable as a virtio layer; it was one
of the design points. I consulted with Herbert Xu early on in the
process, and I don't think it would be too painful. The devil, of
course, is in the details.
> It looks like will still need to maintain all the virtual device
> drivers and in addition we will now have to maintain
> another virtualization layer.
That would be silly, yes.
> I confess I don't know well any of the other virtualization
> technologies besides Xen. Maybe for some of them there is
> enough similarities that you could benefit from a common
> virtualization layer, but I just can't see it yet.
Well, S/390, PowerPC and UML both have virtual I/O already in the kernel
tree, as does Xen. I believe VMWare have out-of-tree drivers. KVM is
in tree, but currently doesn't have paravirtualized drivers.
lguest is sitting in the -mm tree for merging in 2.6.23 with its own
drivers.
None of these drivers is optimal. The Xen ones are closest, and they're
very Xen-specific and quite complex. This is good, and as it gives
virtio drivers a target to beat 8)
Cheers,
Rusty.
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