From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1MJ5Ks-0003IW-Gn for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:42:50 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1MJ5Kn-0003Ed-BZ for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:42:49 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=40232 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1MJ5Km-0003EL-TC for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:42:44 -0400 Received: from mx2.redhat.com ([66.187.237.31]:59479) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1MJ5Kl-0005mp-Un for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:42:44 -0400 From: Amit Shah Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:12:31 +0530 Message-Id: <1245760953-32139-1-git-send-email-amit.shah@redhat.com> Subject: [Qemu-devel] virtio-serial: A guest <-> host interface for simple communication List-Id: qemu-devel.nongnu.org List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: virtualization@lists.linux-foundation.org Cc: qemu-devel@nongnu.org, kvm@vger.kernel.org Hello, Here are two patches. One implements a virtio-serial device in qemu and the other is the driver for a guest kernel. While working on a vmchannel interface that is needed for communication between guest userspace and host userspace, I saw that most of the interface can be abstracted out as a "serial" device with "ports". Some requirements for a vmchannel are listed at this page: http://kvm.et.redhat.com/page/VMchannel_Requirements A few sample uses for a vmchannel are to share the host and guest clipboards (to allow copy/paste between a host and a guest), to lock the screen of the guest session when the vnc viewer is closed, to find out which applications are installed on a guest OS even when the guest is powered down (using virt-inspector) and so on. At this time, the qemu device is more complete than the guest driver is. However, I'd like you to review both the patches for inclusion. Thanks, Amit.