[Xen-devel] [new PV device]

[Vincenzo Maffione <v.maffione@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
   I would like to design a new paravirtual device for Xen PV guests
(under Linux),
for research purposes.
This device should be a "simplification" of netfront/netback in that
the interface
with the domU/dom0 O.S. is not the normal TCP/IP stack, but something way
simpler (however, this is not so important w.r.t. my question).

Looking at the netback code
     linux:drivers/net/xen-netback/xenbus.c
I've run into some "hotplug scripts" support code.
The netfront code, on the other hand, has no hotplug-related code.

I don't really understand what is the purpose of this hotplug support
(Is it something
related to the vif-* scripts?), but I'm wondering whether I can get
rid of this code for my
"simplified" device.

It would be enough for me to be able to do the following:
  1) manually load my backend driver kernel module in Dom0
  2) manually load my frontend driver kernel module in DomU
  3) being able to use my device (think as I have userspace access to
the device through a character device).
I don't want/need any configuration scripts in Dom0 nor DomU (no sw
bridges or routing
tables to configure).  Just plain simple Dom0 <==> DomU buffer exchange.

Is it possibile to achieve this without any "hotplug code"? Or do I need some
other "software pieces" apart from the frontend and backend drivers?


Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
  Vincenzo Maffione

_______________________________________________
Xen-devel mailing list
Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xen.org/xen-devel