Re: [PATCH/RFC 7/9] Virtual network guest device driver

Carsten Otte
2007-05-17T09:29:13Z

Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
> As a userspace apps service, I'd very much like to see a common sockets
> interface for inter-VM communication that is portable across virt systems
> like Xen & KVM. I'd see it as similar to UNIX domain sockets in style. So
> basically any app which could do UNIX domain sockets, could be ported to
> inter-VM sockets by just changing PF_UNIX to say, PF_VIRT
> Lots of interesting details around impl & security (what VMs are allowed
> to talk to each other, whether this policy should be controlled by the
> host, or allow VMs to decide for themselves).
z/VM, the premium hypervisor on 390 already has this capability for
decades. This is called IUCV (inter user communication vehicle), where
user really means virtual machine. It so happens the support for
AF_IUCV was recently merged to Linux mainline. It may be worth a look,
either for using it or because learning from existing solutions is
always a good idea.

so long,
Carsten