Thanks Pasi. I looked at http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenParavirtOps(my foray into linux is via xen, so please pardon by silly questions)

Using Xen/paravirt_ops

Building with domU support

  1. Get a current kernel. The latest kernel.org kernel is generally a good choice.
  2. Configure as normal; you can start with your current .config file
  3. If building 32 bit kernel make sure you have CONFIG_X86_PAE enabled (which is set by selecting CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G)
  4. Enable these core options:
    1. CONFIG_PARAVIRT_GUEST
    2. CONFIG_XEN
  5. And Xen pv device support
    1. CONFIG_HVC_DRIVER and CONFIG_HVC_XEN
    2. CONFIG_XEN_BLKDEV_FRONTEND
    3. CONFIG_XEN_NETDEV_FRONTEND
  6. And build as usual
Config doesn't have pcifront in it? don't I need it for pci passthrough? I have copied linux 2.6.33 source from kernel.org and started building kernel(irrespective of above questions), but what distribution is this kernel associated with i.e I thought I should first install linux from a distribution and rebuild kernel for any modification, but in this case I don't understand what distribution this is associated with. Inputs much appreciated.

Thanks




On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 9:51 AM, Pasi Kärkkäinen <pasik@iki.fi> wrote:
On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 09:10:31AM -0800, Ritu kaur wrote:
>    Hi,
>
>    I am expanding my question to developers forum to get some quick help on
>    pci passthrough. I am using xcp 0.1.1 as a dom0 and installed Debian Lenny
>    as a domU(as mentioned in
>    [1]http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/Command_Line_Interface).
>    Unfortunately, Debian Lenny which the wiki points to doesn't come with PV
>    drivers(I need pcifront driver). I looked up in [2]wiki.debian.org/Xen and
>    I found following snippets
>
>    /***The default Lenny kernel is the newer paravirt_ops version (2.6.26),
>    which does not function as a dom0 (except for the -xen variants, which
>    have dom0 support but also some issues running as domU (please clarify?).
>    It will also not support PCI passthrough in a domU. For PCI passthrough,
>    you have to run the 2.6.18 etch kernel as both dom0 and domU. ***/
>

I don't know if there are pre-packaged kernels for lenny with pcifront driver.

Links to kernel sources that have the pcifront driver:

       - http://xenbits.xen.org/linux-2.6.18-xen.hg
       - pv_ops xen.git xen/stable 2.6.32.9 and xen/master 2.6.31.6
         (See: http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenParavirtOps)
       - Kernels with the forward-ported Novell/opensuse Xen patches (2.6.29, 2.6.31, 2.6.33)
         (See: http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenDom0Kernels)

>    Can someone let me know what domU has been tested with XCP 0.1.1 for pci
>    passthrough and any pointers to that domU kernel binary or source will
>    help me out.
>

Unfortunately I don't know what kernel has been tested.

-- Pasi