RE: [Xen-devel] Can I expose a pci device to HVM domU?

["Caitlin Bestler" <Caitlin.Bestler@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: M.A. Williamson [mailto:maw48@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mark
> Williamson
> Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 6:03 PM
> To: xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: Caitlin Bestler; pradeep singh rautela
> Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] Can I expose a pci device to HVM domU?
> 
> > > Can i assign a PCI device(e.g a NIC) exclusively to a Linux HVM
> > > domainU after hiding it from domain 0?
> > >
> > > I know that only PV guests are the best candidates for this but I
> > > still want to ask, hoping someone might have done some work in
> latest
> > > xen-unstable.
> > >
> > > Is there any known way to do this?
> > >
> > > PS:- NIC Is does not have Intel's VT-d.
> >
> > If the Guest is HVM, how would it know how to give usable
> > DMA addresses to the NIC? (Whether it should be trusted to
> > in the absence of an Address Translation Service is the next
> > question, but first is whether it could even do it at all).
> >
> > A PV Guest, by contrast, would know the distinction between
> > GPAs and SPAs (not that it makes it any more trustworthy).
> 
> Guys from Neocleus (I think) have been working on making PCI
> passthrough to HVM guests happen, without using an IOMMU.
> There is code out there that these guys have released.
> It's a clever bit of lateral thinking that makes this
> possible :-)
> 

Ultimately *some* form of Address Translation Service is required.
Stacking the deck so that a null translation works is still a form
of Address Translation Service. Translating work requests in a
backend driver is also an Address Translation Service.

I see no problem of embracing multiple Address Translation solutions,
as long as the caveats with each are clear and unambiguous. But I
think it would be a mistake for a Hypervisor to take extra steps
to facilitate solutions that do not provide the full  equivalent
of a PCI-SIG defined IOMMU.

In this case, I would not recommend taking extra steps to enable
direct access to a NIC from an HVM Guest. Trusting a guest to refrain
from accessing memory it does not own is a major act of faith that
is rarely justified, but an HVM Guest would not even understand what
it has been entrusted with. That sounds very risky to me.

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