Re: Using virtio for inter-VM communication
On Thu, 12 Jun 2014 08:48:04 +0200 Markus Armbruster wrote: > Vincent JARDIN writes: > > > On 10/06/2014 18:48, Henning Schild wrote:> Hi, > >> In a first prototype i implemented a ivshmem[2] device for the > >> hypervisor. That way we can share memory between virtual machines. > >> Ivshmem is nice and simple but does not seem to be used anymore. > >> And it > >> does not define higher level devices, like a console. > > > > FYI, ivhsmem is used here: > > http://dpdk.org/browse/memnic/tree/ > > > > http://dpdk.org/browse/memnic/tree/pmd/pmd_memnic.c#n449 > > > > There are some few other references too, if needed. > > It may be used, but that doesn't mean it's maintained, or robust > against abuse. My advice is to steer clear of it. Could you elaborate on why you advice against it? Henning -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Using virtio for inter-VM communication
Hi, i am working on the jailhouse[1] project and am currently looking at inter-VM communication. We want to connect guests directly with virtual consoles based on shared memory. The code complexity in the hypervisor should be minimal, it should just make the shared memory discoverable and provide a signaling mechanism. We would like to reuse virtio so that Linux-guests will eventually just work without having to patch them. Having looked at virtio it seems to be focused on host<->guest communication and does not consider direct guest<->guest communication. I.e. the queues use guest-physical addressing, which is only meaningful for the guest and the host. In a first prototype i implemented a ivshmem[2] device for the hypervisor. That way we can share memory between virtual machines. Ivshmem is nice and simple but does not seem to be used anymore. And it does not define higher level devices, like a console. At this point i could: - define a console on top of ivshmem - see how i can get a virtio console to work between guests on shared memory Is anyone already using something like that? I guess zero-copy virtio devices in Xen would be a similar case. I read a suggestion from may 2010 to introduce a virtio feature bit for shared memory (VIRTIO_F_RING_SHMEM_ADDR). But that did not make it into the virtio-spec. regards, Henning [1] jailhouse https://github.com/siemens/jailhouse [2] ivshmem https://gitorious.org/nahanni -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
