Thanks for the info, and thanks also for working on the software. It sounds as if the short answer is I can't do what I want with my current hardware; am I understanding correcty? And to get it to work I need two video "cards"? Do they both need to support the newer capabilities, or is it enough that one of them does? It looks as if the archlinux blog describes binding the input devices as well as the video to the VM. If you need to access the host system, how do you do it? shutdown the VM? ssh to the host from the VM? That seems to raise another challenge: to bring up the guests I first need to decrypt a device in the host. So it would be helpful to see the messages from the host and essential to type in a pass-phrase for the host. But it looks as one must specify options for remapping to the host kernel on boot. If my keyboard can only talk to the guest I won't be able to type the pass-phrase, which I must do to bring the guest up. I hope I've misunderstood; can anyone clear these issues up for me? If FLReset is irrelevant, why were those pages discussiing it? The (outdated) http://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/VTdHowTo says "Only devices with FLR capabilities are supported.". Is that just a Xen thing? The Radeon video card wasn't close to cutting edge even when I put it in; I picked it because at the time it was the highest Radeon said to have good open-source support. The blog was also interesting because at home it would be great to play games in a virtualized MS-Windows, and that clearly requires giving the VM pretty direct access to the video card. Ross ________________________________________ From: Alex Williamson [alex.williamson@xxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2014 1:35 PM To: Boylan, Ross Cc: kvm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Use VM as main "machine" On Sun, 2014-10-12 at 18:21 +0000, Boylan, Ross wrote: > I would like to install a simple system on the hardware level, and do most of my work in one of the VM's. > In the past I have accessed VM's graphically using vnc, but if I did that my base system (dom0 in Xen, I think) would need to run X server, which would complicate it and render the whole setup vulnerable if there was a problem with X. Also, I've had trouble in the past using evolution remotely. > > Is there a way to hook a VM more directly to the display, keyboard and mouse? > > http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/How_to_assign_devices_with_VT-d_in_KVM seemed potentially relevant, but tracing through the references I didn't find FLReset+ on any PCI devices other than audio, so that seems to be out (although the reference page http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_PCI_Passthrough#How_can_I_check_if_PCI_device_supports_FLR_.28Function_Level_Reset.29_.3F says that it is out of date). > > My immediate interest is a system that's about 5 years old, running Xeon E5420's with VT-x. It has a VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RV570 [Radeon X1950 Pro] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) > I'm also considering doing the same on a more recent system with Xeon E3-1245 v 2. It has VT-x and Vt-d, with Intel® HD Graphics P4000. I might get an external video card later. It also doesn't show FLReset+ except for audio. FLR is irrelevant, no video devices have it afaict. Neither of your video cards work with current VGA/OVMF device assignment either, IGD may work in the relative short term, Radeon X1xxx devices are too old to bother with. See this thread: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=162768 and this blog: http://vfio.blogspot.com/ For an idea of what's currently possible. Be aware that all of this is bleeding edge and chances of needing to build your own kernel/QEMU are high. I'd recommend something like an HD5450 as the the minimum Radeon class card and an 8-series Nvidia as the minimum on that end. Alex -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
