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[Xen-devel] RE: [Xen-users] Release 0.9.2 of GPL PV Drivers for Windows

To: "Emre ERENOGLU" <erenoglu@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Xen-devel] RE: [Xen-users] Release 0.9.2 of GPL PV Drivers for Windows
From: "James Harper" <james.harper@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 19:31:58 +1000
Cc: Stephan Seitz <s.seitz@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Thread-topic: [Xen-users] Release 0.9.2 of GPL PV Drivers for Windows
> 
> James, if you can find some free time, could you please explain us how
> this vscsi thing works and how to enable it? Would it also gain us
some
> performance, or is for serving other purpose?
> 

pvSCSI was a series of patches posted by Jun Kamada on or around 18th
Feb 2008 (look for subject "[Patch x/7] pvSCSI driver]. Jun was given a
heap of feedback in response to those patches and went away to dwell on
it. A recent post indicated that he would be releasing an updated
version soon.

xenscsi is a windows frontend driver to the pvSCSI backend driver, and
allows (via the sg interface) raw scsi devices to be exported from Linux
to Windows. I am now using it to do test restores of Symantec's Backup
Exec backups using Symantec's IDR CD. Because the PV drivers are all WDM
instead of WDF, it's easy enough to make a windows text mode setup
floppy so you can activate the drivers via F6 when installing Windows.

As for performance, I'm getting between 1-2GB/minute from the tape
drive, this performance is probably limited by other factors, eg I'm
still using the qemu harddisk drivers at that stage.

If you had a scsi device (or sas/sata possibly) that you were willing to
dedicate solely to one domain, xenscsi would allow you to do it. I've
only tested it on tape drives at the moment. YMMV :)

James

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