Re: Event channels in KVM?

[Anthony Liguori <anthony@codemonkey.ws>]

Javier Guerra wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 1:31 PM, Anthony Liguori <anthony@codemonkey.ws> wrote:
>   
>> Matt Anger wrote:
>>     
>>> Does KVM have any interface similar to event-channels like Xen does?
>>> Basically a way to send notifications between the host and guest.
>>>
>>>       
>> virtio is the abstraction we use.
>>
>> But virtio is based on the standard hardware interfaces of the PC--PIO,
>> MMIO, and interrupts.
>>     
>
> this is rather low-level, it would be nice to have a multiplatform
> interface to this abstraction.
>   

That's exactly the purpose of virtio.  virtio is a high-level, cross 
platform interface.  It's been tested on x86, PPC, s390, and I believe 
ia64.  It also works in lguest.

It happens to use PIO, MMIO, and interrupts on x86 under KVM but other 
virtio implementations exist for other platforms.

> just for kicks, i've found and printed Rusty's paper about it. hope
> it's current :-)
>   

The other good thing to look at is the lguest documentation.  You can 
skip to just the virtio bits if you're so inclined.  It's really quite 
thoroughly documented.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori