A set of "standard" virtual devices?

H. Peter Anvin
2007-04-02T20:19:07Z

On the subject of virtualization; there are a number of devices which
keep being invented and reinvented by just about every virtualization
vendor for no really good reason.

I personally recently pointed out that a proper virtualization solution
should handle entropy collection at the lowest level (where the physical
hardware drivers are) and present a hw_rng interface to the guests.
Unfortunately, none of the hardware-based hw_rng interfaces is sane
enough to do that with, which calls for a virtual driver.

It would be nice if there was one, and not a dozen, such drivers.

I would therefore like to propose that the Linux Foundation register a
PCI ID for use by LANANA ($3000/year), and we set up a LANANA registry
for these device IDs, together with a description of the device
interface each of them expect. Similarly, a Subsystem ID registry can
be used (for virtualization vendors which don't have their own VID
already) to distinguish different implementations.

Obviously, anyone who adheres to the published interface can use one of
these VID:DIDs -- as far as I'm concerned, even hardware vendors; we'll
use the SID to distinguish between implementations.

-hpa