Xen users - May 2008 - PCI passthrough for domU?

Now that my Solaris domU is working (thanks again, all), I have a PCI
NIC that I''d like to pass through to it.  Searching the archive
I''ve
found the threads saying passthrough isn''t ready for dom0 yet (or
wasn''t
as of earlier this year), but I haven''t been able to find anything
about
domU recognizing passed-through devices, yea or nay.

I went ahead and tried it (my dom0 works for this, can pass the same
device through to domains running Linux) but the device didn''t
magically
appear on a reboot with /reconfigure, so before I spend a lot of time on
this I thought I''d better ask if it works in general.

Thanks,
--Michael


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Michael Jinks wrote:
> Now that my Solaris domU is working (thanks again, all)
A quick question. Have you managed to use zfs root for your solaris domU?

Regards,

Fajar


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Hi Michael,

On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 12:35 AM, Michael Jinks <mjinks@uchicago.edu>
wrote:
> Now that my Solaris domU is working (thanks again, all), I have a PCI
> NIC that I''d like to pass through to it.  Searching the archive
I''ve
> found the threads saying passthrough isn''t ready for dom0 yet (or
wasn''t
> as of earlier this year), but I haven''t been able to find anything
about
> domU recognizing passed-through devices, yea or nay.
>
> I went ahead and tried it (my dom0 works for this, can pass the same
> device through to domains running Linux) but the device didn''t
magically
> appear on a reboot with /reconfigure, so before I spend a lot of time on
> this I thought I''d better ask if it works in general.
>
passthrough in general is known to work for PV guests. I have personal
experience
Linux to Linux. Work is still in progress for HVM guests I believe, so that
is likely
to still be a tougher thing to get working until the support for that has
officially
been released and out there for a bit. If the solaris guest is running as a
PV guest
I would expect that it should work, I would double-check with the solaris
xen guys
they would have a better intuition and some may have tried it.

Cheers,
Todd


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On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 09:30:14AM -0400, Todd Deshane
wrote:
> On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 12:35 AM, Michael Jinks <mjinks@uchicago.edu>
wrote:
<snip>
> > I went ahead and tried it (my dom0 works for this, can pass the same
> > device through to domains running Linux) but the device
didn''t magically
> > appear on a reboot with /reconfigure, so before I spend a lot of time
on
> > this I thought I''d better ask if it works in general.
> 
> passthrough in general is known to work for PV guests.
Yeah, I''ve had it working in a couple of Linux guests, on this same
dom0, and the Solaris guest is running in PV mode.
> I would expect that it should work, I would double-check with the solaris
> xen guys
> they would have a better intuition and some may have tried it.
Yep, I know some of them watch this list, was hoping they''d chime in,
but now I realize I should have put Solaris in the subject line.

I used to be a Solaris admin but it was a while ago, and I never did
much with the x86 port, so I''m not sure what I should expect to see
under /devices, but there''s nothing there that calls itself
"pci"-anything, so I''m wondering if the domU kernel (whether
in general
or just in my case) can''t see the PCI bus.

I haven''t actually tried plumbing the interface yet, maybe I should be
trying to figure out what Solaris calls an nForce ethernet card and give
it a shot...

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On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 11:38:11AM -0500, Michael Jinks wrote:
> > I would expect that it should work, I would double-check with the
solaris
> > xen guys
> > they would have a better intuition and some may have tried it.
> 
> Yep, I know some of them watch this list, was hoping they''d chime
in,
> but now I realize I should have put Solaris in the subject line.
Indeed :)

Solaris domU doesn''t yet support pass-through, I''m afraid.
> I haven''t actually tried plumbing the interface yet, maybe I
should be
> trying to figure out what Solaris calls an nForce ethernet card and give
> it a shot...
nge (I think)

regards
john

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On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 05:39:50PM +0100, John Levon
wrote:
> 
> Solaris domU doesn''t yet support pass-through, I''m
afraid.
Okay, good to know.  I can get by without it, I think, it just means a
little extra work setting up a second bridge.

Thanks for the clarification.

Cheers,
-j

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