From owner-freebsd-xen@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Nov 7 11:27:37 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-xen@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 509892DD for ; Thu, 7 Nov 2013 11:27:37 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from roger.pau@citrix.com) Received: from SMTP02.CITRIX.COM (smtp02.citrix.com [66.165.176.63]) (using TLSv1 with cipher RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 8AC6D24F5 for ; Thu, 7 Nov 2013 11:27:36 +0000 (UTC) X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.93,651,1378857600"; d="scan'208";a="68988722" Received: from accessns.citrite.net (HELO FTLPEX01CL03.citrite.net) ([10.9.154.239]) by FTLPIPO02.CITRIX.COM with ESMTP; 07 Nov 2013 11:27:27 +0000 Received: from [IPv6:::1] (10.80.16.47) by smtprelay.citrix.com (10.13.107.80) with Microsoft SMTP Server id 14.2.342.4; Thu, 7 Nov 2013 06:27:26 -0500 Message-ID: <527B791D.2030302@citrix.com> Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 12:27:25 +0100 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Roger_Pau_Monn=E9?= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.7; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Hilton Day , Subject: Re: Paravirt domU and PCI Passthrough References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-DLP: MIA2 X-BeenThere: freebsd-xen@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion of the freebsd port to xen - implementation and usage List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 11:27:37 -0000 On 05/11/13 09:43, Hilton Day wrote: > Hi - firstly a warning. While I've been running Xen on Linux for about 6 > years, I've only just started to scratch the surface of freeBSD. > > I just compiled a (working) paravirt kernel for freeBSD 8.3 (actually for > pfSense firewall), and have succeeded in running it with a couple of > virtual interfaces. However, I've struck a couple of limitations: > > 1. Seems to be no support for the Xen pcifront to enable pci passthrough > to paravirt domUs? No, there's no pcifrontend, so right now it's not possible to use i386 PV guests with pci-passthrough. > 2. SMP support seems to be broken - I get a kernel panic with more than > one core for the VM. Yes, it's broken. > I've had a look and can't find anything like the Linux kernel option > for CONFIG_XEN_PCIDEV_FRONTEND > to enable pci support in paravirt? (but this could be lack of familiarity > with freeBSD build process/tree/files). > > I've succeessfully passed thorugh the same NIC to freeBSD Xen HVM domUs > (running 8.3 and 9.1), but would prefer to get a fully paravirt instance up > and running. > > Is PCI Passthrough possible with a freeBSD paravirt domU? I just set up a > freeBSD 10 BETA2 environment and have kicked off the build process with: > >> make buildkernel KERNCONF=XEN > > I'm just wondering whether I'm chasing a dead end and should just settle > for a XEN HVM solution? There have been a lot of improvements recently (that apply to both HEAD and stable-10) in order to get PVHVM working, which has a performance similar to pure PV (or even better depending on the workload). Also, i386 PV is currently broken on both HEAD and stable-10 AFAIK, so I would recommend switching to PVHVM instead. Roger.