From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: scott.kvm@scottrix.co.uk Subject: Virtio File System. Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:44:23 +0100 Message-ID: <20080827104423.GA2670@scottrix.co.uk> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed To: kvm@vger.kernel.org Return-path: Received: from mk-filter-1-a-1.mail.uk.tiscali.com ([212.74.100.52]:31819 "EHLO mk-filter-1-a-1.mail.uk.tiscali.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753743AbYH0Kzr (ORCPT ); Wed, 27 Aug 2008 06:55:47 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Sender: kvm-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: All I am new to this mailing list, so please let me know if I am in the wrong place or asking questions in a way I shouldn't. I was wondering if anyone had thought about creating a virtio file system, rather than using a block device and hence a single file on the host OS as the virtio block device already does, but map file system calls on the guest OS to file system calls on the host OS through the virtio interface. In this way the Guest OS could share files with the Host OS without needing to use Samba, which from my current experiences is rather slow. I have started to play with the idea a little myself, but my biggest problem is that I have no clue how to write filesystem drives in my Guest OS, Window XP, or even if it is possible to get a Windows FileSystem driver to talk directly to a PCI device, or if some kind of dummy block device would be needed. My host OS is Linux, Guest OS is Windows XP. Maybe I should start with a Linux/Linux setup and get that working first ? Any comments, suggests, problems that you can see with this idea would be great. Thanks, Scott.