On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 08:06:57AM -0700, Andrew Stiegmann (stieg) wrote: > In an effort to improve the out-of-the-box experience with Linux > kernels for VMware users, VMware is working on readying the Virtual > Machine Communication Interface (vmw_vmci) and VMCI Sockets (vmw_vsock) kernel > modules for inclusion in the Linux kernel. The purpose of this post > is to acquire feedback on the vmw_vmci kernel module. The vmw_vsock > kernel module will be presented in a later post. > > VMCI allows virtual machines to communicate with host kernel modules > and the VMware hypervisors. User level applications both in a virtual > machine and on the host can use vmw_vmci through VMCI Sockets, a socket > address family designed to be compatible with UDP and TCP at the > interface level. Today, VMCI and VMCI Sockets are used by the VMware > shared folders (HGFS) and various VMware Tools components inside the > guest for zero-config, network-less access to VMware host services. In > addition to this, VMware's users are using VMCI Sockets for various > applications, where network access of the virtual machine is > restricted or non-existent. Examples of this are VMs communicating > with device proxies for proprietary hardware running as host > applications and automated testing of applications running within > virtual machines. > > In a virtual machine, VMCI is exposed as a regular PCI device. The > primary communication mechanisms supported are a point-to-point > bidirectional transport based on a pair of memory-mapped queues, and > asynchronous notifications in the form of datagrams and > doorbells. These features are available to kernel level components > such as HGFS and VMCI Sockets through the VMCI kernel API. In addition > to this, the VMCI kernel API provides support for receiving events > related to the state of the VMCI communication channels, and the > virtual machine itself. Don't we have something like this already for KVM and maybe Xen? virtio? Can't you use that code instead of a new block of code that is only used by vmware users? It has virtual pci devices which should give you what you want/need here, right? If not, why doesn't that work for you? Would it be easier to just extend it? thanks, greg k-h _______________________________________________ Virtualization mailing list Virtualization@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/virtualization
