xen discuss - Jul 2007 - Using xenstore/xenbus from a windows guest

Hi All,

I have been given the not so pleasant task of writing a windows driver 
that will allow information to be read and written to Xenstore.  I have 
no experience with this so if someone could point me in the right 
direction that would be great.  A couple of questions are:  How is the 
xenstore/xenbus stuff shared between VM''s (I know about the
cli''s, is it
shared through a memory location maybe?).  Will the whole xenbus or 
store have to be ported to windows?  Any input is greatly appreciated :-)

Thanks,
Christian

Christian Smith - Sun Microsystems - Dublin Ireland
wrote:
> I have been given the not so pleasant task of writing a windows driver 
> that will allow information to be read and written to Xenstore.  I have 
> no experience with this so if someone could point me in the right 
> direction that would be great.
The project team may well not be the best set of people to advise in how 
to port things to Windows :-/
> A couple of questions are:  How is the 
> xenstore/xenbus stuff shared between VM''s (I know about the
cli''s, is it
> shared through a memory location maybe?).
There''s an inter-domain protocol based on shared pages and an event
channel.
> Will the whole xenbus or 
> store have to be ported to windows?
You''ll need an implementation of the xenbus frontend interface,
together
with a way to issue hypercalls.

Many of these things are also required for PV IO drivers under Windows, 
so getting together with someone producing those would be a good idea.

dme.

Hi David,

Thanks for your reply, that helps alot.  I was just wondering if you 
know anybody offhand that is working on PV IO drivers at the moment?

Cheers,
Christian

David Edmondson wrote:
> Christian Smith - Sun Microsystems - Dublin Ireland wrote:
>> I have been given the not so pleasant task of writing a windows 
>> driver that will allow information to be read and written to 
>> Xenstore.  I have no experience with this so if someone could point 
>> me in the right direction that would be great.
>
> The project team may well not be the best set of people to advise in 
> how to port things to Windows :-/
>
>> A couple of questions are:  How is the xenstore/xenbus stuff shared 
>> between VM''s (I know about the cli''s, is it shared
through a memory
>> location maybe?).
>
> There''s an inter-domain protocol based on shared pages and an
event
> channel.
>
>> Will the whole xenbus or store have to be ported to windows?
>
> You''ll need an implementation of the xenbus frontend interface, 
> together with a way to issue hypercalls.
>
> Many of these things are also required for PV IO drivers under 
> Windows, so getting together with someone producing those would be a 
> good idea.
>
> dme.