>>> On 8/6/2009 at 9:57 AM, in message <4A7AE150.7040009@xxxxxxxxxx>, Avi Kivity
<avi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 08/06/2009 04:45 PM, Gregory Haskins wrote:
>>
>>> (though still rooting for virtio).
>>>
>>
>> Heh...not to belabor the point to death, but virtio is orthogonal (you keep
> forgetting that ;).
>>
>> Its really the vbus device-model vs the qemu device-model (and possibly vs the
> "in-kernel pci emulation" model that I believe Michael is working on).
>>
>> You can run virtio on any of those three.
>>
>
> It's not orthogonal. virtio is one set of ABI+guest drivers+host
> support to get networking on kvm guests. AlacrityVM's vbus-based
> drivers are another set of ABI+guest drivers+host support to get
> networking on kvm guests. That makes them competitors (two different
> ways to do one thing), not orthogonal.
Thats not accurate, though.
The virtio stack is modular. For instance, with virtio-net, you have
(guest-side)
|--------------------------
| virtio-net
|--------------------------
| virtio-ring
|--------------------------
| virtio-bus
|--------------------------
| virtio-pci
|--------------------------
|
(pci)
|
|--------------------------
| kvm.ko
|--------------------------
| qemu
|--------------------------
| tun-tap
|--------------------------
| netif
|--------------------------
(host-side)
We can exchange out the "virtio-pci" module like this:
(guest-side)
|--------------------------
| virtio-net
|--------------------------
| virtio-ring
|--------------------------
| virtio-bus
|--------------------------
| virtio-vbus
|--------------------------
| vbus-proxy
|--------------------------
| vbus-connector
|--------------------------
|
(vbus)
|
|--------------------------
| kvm.ko
|--------------------------
| vbus-connector
|--------------------------
| vbus
|--------------------------
| virtio-net-tap (vbus model)
|--------------------------
| netif
|--------------------------
(host-side)
So virtio-net runs unmodified. What is "competing" here is "virtio-pci" vs "virtio-vbus". Also, venet vs virtio-net are technically competing. But to say "virtio vs vbus" is inaccurate, IMO.
HTH
-Greg
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