Xen users - Oct 2008 - USB Support for Windows HVM using VT-D?

I am trying to get hotplugable USB support in a Windows HVM using Xen 3.2 on
Fedora 8.  I am running a Dell 755 workstation with VT-D support and I am
attempting to use the PCI passthrough process to grab a USB controller from
the workstation and make it available to the Windows XP DomU.  I have
successfully hidden the USB controller from Dom0 and my Windows XP VM does
detect a "New USB Controller" but it says it needs drivers for the USB
Controller and none of the default ones work.  I checked out both Dell and
Intel looking for any new custom USB drivers for the 755 workstation and
both sites said that Windows XP SP2+ should auto-detect the USB (and thus no
special stand alone drivers were provided).  The USB controller in question
is the Intel ICH9 family.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated even if the advice consists of
"this
can''t be done (yet)" or "you need to run a Linux DomU". 
I feel that I''ve
either missed something or something is wrong with the brand new VT-D
technology that is preventing Windows from interfacing with the USB
controller.  Let me know if any additional information if needed for a
diagnosis.  Thanks in advance.


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Mike Brotzman wrote:
> I am trying to get hotplugable USB support in a Windows HVM using Xen
> 3.2 on Fedora 8.  I am running a Dell 755 workstation with VT-D support
> and I am attempting to use the PCI passthrough process to grab a USB
> controller from the workstation and make it available to the Windows XP
> DomU.  I have successfully hidden the USB controller from Dom0 and my
> Windows XP VM does detect a "New USB Controller" but it says it
needs
> drivers for the USB Controller and none of the default ones work.  I
> checked out both Dell and Intel looking for any new custom USB drivers
> for the 755 workstation and both sites said that Windows XP SP2+ should
> auto-detect the USB (and thus no special stand alone drivers were
> provided).  The USB controller in question is the Intel ICH9 family.
> 
> Any advice would be greatly appreciated even if the advice consists of
> "this can''t be done (yet)" or "you need to run a
Linux DomU".  I feel
> that I''ve either missed something or something is wrong with the
brand
> new VT-D technology that is preventing Windows from interfacing with the
> USB controller.  Let me know if any additional information if needed for
> a diagnosis.  Thanks in advance. 
Mike,

I have been unable to get VT-d to pass the motherboard USB controllers
to a domU on a DQ35JO board.  However, I bought a cheap ($25) PCI
Express USB controller and it works just fine for that purpose.  I hope
that helps.

Regards,

Jeff

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I got to the point where I installed a fresh copy of Windows XP SP3 in the
DomU and I managed to get it to detect an Enhansed UBS Controller and an
Unknown USB Device (in addition to the Unknown PCI device that still hanging
around), I still can''t find drivers that will make these built-in USB
controllers work.  My DonU XP image had been somewhat elderly, and updating
to SP3 did result in it auto-detecting an enhanced USB controller, but I
can''t make that little yellow exclamation point go away and stand-alone
drivers for the Dell 755 motherboard do not seem to be available.

I have a PCI USB controller card that I can use as my plan B, but I just
wanted to run the current situation by the list again before I give up
getting the built-in USB controllers to work.  Thanks so much.

I can''t find the message on the list but I recall something saying that
in
> this case we are passing the device to the domU so it isn''t
emulated by qemu
> anymore but still you need specific device driver.
> It''s what is done for disks and network card (mostly).
>
> With qemu and the monitor mode usb_add and usb_del works not so bad and so
> you can do hotplug (but you need to issue command to make the device
> visible/unvisible to domU).
>
> HTH
>
> Matthieu.
>
Mike Brotzman wrote:
> I am trying to get hotplugable USB support in a Windows HVM using Xen
> 3.2 on Fedora 8.  I am running a Dell 755 workstation with VT-D support
> and I am attempting to use the PCI passthrough process to grab a USB
> controller from the workstation and make it available to the Windows XP
> DomU.  I have successfully hidden the USB controller from Dom0 and my
> Windows XP VM does detect a "New USB Controller" but it says it
needs
> drivers for the USB Controller and none of the default ones work.  I
> checked out both Dell and Intel looking for any new custom USB drivers
> for the 755 workstation and both sites said that Windows XP SP2+ should
> auto-detect the USB (and thus no special stand alone drivers were
> provided).  The USB controller in question is the Intel ICH9 family.
>
> Any advice would be greatly appreciated even if the advice consists of
> "this can''t be done (yet)" or "you need to run a
Linux DomU".  I feel
> that I''ve either missed something or something is wrong with the
brand
> new VT-D technology that is preventing Windows from interfacing with the
> USB controller.  Let me know if any additional information if needed for
> a diagnosis.  Thanks in advance.

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