Re: Recommended HBA management interfaces

James Smart
2009-07-21T14:59:22Z

There's some interesting dichotomies in this question/response:

Drivers exist :
1) Within the ESX kernel for physical hardware, with ESX leveraging the api's
from the linux kernel/midlayer/etc in order to pick up linux drivers for
device support in their kernel/hypervisor. This was my discussion area.
Management of this area wants to happen via VMware-based paradigms.

2) Within a guest OS for : a) emulated hardware or b) direct pci function
passthru to the guest os.

3) VMware emulates a LSI adapter as a guest-os-to-hypervisor abstraction point
(e.g 2a). Thus LSI drivers could/can exist in both ESX and in the Guest OS
simultaneously, and if the guest is running linux, both driver instances are
effectively the linux driver. Atul/LSI is trying very hard to make the one
linux driver work in both environments.

Hope this helps.

-- james s

Mukker, Atul wrote:
> We _are_ talking about the "optimized" driver :-)
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: linux-scsi-owner@vger.kernel.org [mailto:linux-scsi-
>> owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of Drew
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 9:49 AM
>> To: linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org
>> Subject: Re: Recommended HBA management interfaces
>>
>>> VMware attempts to emulate the linux driver/midlayer api's, but
>> emulation is done
>>> in their own way, with their own semantics, for their own purposes..
>> Anyone
>>> that believes they just drop a linux driver into vmware and it works w/o
>>> change has a screw loose.
>> I must confess to some confusion James. I thought that VMware emulates
>> hardware and that outside of optimized drivers they don't get involved
>> in the higher layers of the guest OS.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Drew
>>
>> "Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."
>> --Marie Curie
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