[ovirt-users] Directly connect NIC or other cards to VM?

[Martin Polednik]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lior Vernia" <lvernia at redhat.com>
> To: "David Smith" <dsmith at mypchelp.com>
> Cc: "users" <users at ovirt.org>, "Martin Polednik" <mpoledni at redhat.com>
> Sent: Monday, February 16, 2015 9:15:41 AM
> Subject: Re: [ovirt-users] Directly connect NIC or other cards to VM?
> 
> Hi David,
> 
> On 13/02/15 01:28, David Smith wrote:
> > Is there a way to directly connect a specific device (ie, NIC) to a
> > particular VM?
> > 
> > I've figured out how to map a specific network interface to a VM, thats
> > one step, but in the end I may need direct access to the PCI device itself.
> 
> I think this 3.6 feature might do exactly what you want:
> http://www.ovirt.org/Features/hostdev_passthrough
> 
> It's gonna be a while before 3.6 is out, but once the feature is merged
> it'll be available if you install the nightly snapshot. CCing Martin
> Polednik, the feature owner.

Hello,

just on the status of the feature (as it's exactly what you require - direct
pci device attachment) - the host side is hopefully ~week away from being
ready, the UI side will take longer though - if you wanted, you could probably
run nightly and spawn the VM yourself and treat is as external VM. CCing Martin
Betak, who is the one to blame for the UI :)

You also need RHEL 7 (ideal support will be in 7.1) and I suggest reading
the chapter on IOMMU groups, as you might need to block (detach from host)
other devices than the nic in order to get it passed through.

> > 
> > Second to that, for network interfaces mapped to a particular VM, is
> > there a way for the VM to be able to properly detect physical link state
> > of that interface? Right now that's a 'configurable option' inside
> > network interface settings on the VM in the manager (ie, plugged, not
> > plugged, and link state up /down)
> 
> If I'm not mistaken, once you have direct access to the PCI device
> you'll be able to query for its actual state using e.g. ethtool.
> 
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > David
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
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> > http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/users
> > 
>