Hi Daniel,

Please see inline...

On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 1:34 PM, Daniel Stodden
<daniel.stodden@citrix.com>wrote:

> On Mon, 2010-02-22 at 12:36 -0500, Ritu kaur wrote:
>
> >
> >         I'm not sure right now how easy the control plane in XCP will
> >         make it
> >         without other domU's notice, but maybe consider something
> >         like:
> >
> >          1. Take the physical NIC out of the virtual network.
> >          2. Take the driver down.
> >          3. Pass access to the NIC to a domU.
> >          4. Let domU do the unspeakable.
> >          5.-7. Revert 3,2,1 to normal.
> >
> >         This won't mess with the the PV drivers. Get PCI passthrough
> >         to work for
> >         3 and 4 and you save yourself a tedious ring protocol design.
> >         If not,
> >         consider doing the hardware programming in dom0, because
> >         there's not
> >         much left for domU anyway.
> >
> >         You need a split toolstack to get the dom0 network control
> >         steps on
> >         behalf of domU done. Might be just a scripted agent,
> >         accessible to domU
> >         via a couple RPCs. Could also turn out to be as simple as
> >         talking
> >         through the primary vif, because the connection between domU
> >         and dom0
> >         could remain unaffected.
> >
> >
> >
> > PCI passthrough is via config changes and no code changes, if that's
> > the case I am not sure how it would solve multiple domU accesses.
>
> My understanding after catching up a little on the past of this thread
> was that you want the network controller in some maintenance mode. Is
> this correct?
>

All I need to  is access NIC registers via domU's(network controller will
still be working normally). Using PCI passthrough solves the problem for a
domU, however, it doesn't solve when multiple domU's wanting to read NIC
registers(ex. statistics).

>
> To get it there you will need to temporarily remove it from the virtual
> network topology.
>
> The PCI passthrough mode might solve your second problem, which is how
> the domU is supposed to access the device once it's been pulled off the
> data path.
>

> > For the second paragraph, do you have recommended readings? frankly I
> > don't completely understand the solution any pointers appreciated.
>
> > In addition, registers in NIC are memory mapped(ioremap function is
> > used, and in ioctls memcpy_toio and memcpy_fromio is used to
> > write/read registers) and wanted  to know if its possible to map
> > memory from dom0 into domU's?
>
> Yes. This is the third problem, which is how to program a device. I'd
> recommend "Linux Device Drivers" on that subject. There are also free
> books like http://tldp.org/LDP/tlk/tlk-title.html. Examples likely
> outdate, but the concepts remain.
>
> If the device is memory mapped, it doesn't mean it's in memory. It means
> it's in the machine memory address space. The difference should become
> clear once you're done with understanding your driver.
>
> Is this the reason why you are so concerned about the memory sharing
> mechanism?


No not really. I wanted to use shared memory between dom's as a solution for
multiple domU access(since pci passthrough doesn't solve it).

The clarification I wanted here(NIC registers are memory mapped), can I take
"machine memory address space(which is in dom0)" and remap it to domU's such
that I can get multiple domU access.

To summarize,

1. PCI passthrough mechanism works for single domU
2. Shared memory rings between dom's as a solution to have multiple domU
access, not a workable solution though
3. Take mapped machine address in dom0 and remap it into domU's(just another
thought, not sure it works) and wanted clarification here.

Thanks


> The good news is now you won't need to bother, that's only
> for memory. :)
>

> Daniel
>
>
>