From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jeremy Fitzhardinge Subject: Re: A set of "standard" virtual devices? Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2007 13:56:50 -0700 Message-ID: <46116E12.5070206@goop.org> References: <4611652F.700@zytor.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <4611652F.700@zytor.com> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org To: "H. Peter Anvin" Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List , mathiasen@gmail.com, Virtualization Mailing List List-Id: virtualization@lists.linuxfoundation.org H. Peter Anvin wrote: > 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. How would that work in the case where virtualized guests don't have a visible PCI bus, and the virtual environment doesn't pretend to emulate a PCI bus? J