Re: RFC: Network Plugin Architecture (NPA) for vmxnet3

Stephen Hemminger
2010-05-05T00:05:36Z

On Tue, 4 May 2010 16:02:25 -0700
Pankaj Thakkar <pthakkar@vmware.com> wrote:

> Device passthrough technology allows a guest to bypass the hypervisor and drive
> the underlying physical device. VMware has been exploring various ways to
> deliver this technology to users in a manner which is easy to adopt. In this
> process we have prepared an architecture along with Intel - NPA (Network Plugin
> Architecture). NPA allows the guest to use the virtualized NIC vmxnet3 to
> passthrough to a number of physical NICs which support it. The document below
> provides an overview of NPA.
>
> We intend to upgrade the upstreamed vmxnet3 driver to implement NPA so that
> Linux users can exploit the benefits provided by passthrough devices in a
> seamless manner while retaining the benefits of virtualization. The document
> below tries to answer most of the questions which we anticipated. Please let us
> know your comments and queries.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Signed-off-by: Pankaj Thakkar <pthakkar@vmware.com>

Code please. Also, it has to work for all architectures not just VMware and
Intel.