[Xen-users] vga passthrough status / probability of success?

[Jeremy Blosser <jblosser-xen@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I want to build a xen rig at home that primarily hosts domUs for servers
and services, but also has one domU I can use for x/browsing/gaming that
keeps it isolated from the services so load and general instability from
that kind of use doesn't impact anything else.  I gather from a whole lot
of googling the last few days that this is not an atypical question, though
what may be atypical is that I'm not looking to run windows for the games,
just another linux install with wine.

I also gather from googling that this is pretty bleeding edge, but expected
to be hitting mainline in 4.0.  I am still not clear, however, if people
are actually being successful at this or if there are particular hardware
configurations known to work or that should be avoided.  I see lots of
questions like "does this board support vt-d" that eventually end in "yes"
"no" or "maybe" based on manufacturer data and responses, but precious
little actual stories of success once the hardware is together.  The wiki
page at http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenVGAPassthrough however makes
it sound pretty straightforward, at least until one starts following the
links at the end.

I am a sysadmin/engineer who has run a whole lot of xen for $dayjob since
the beginning of xen and I have been known to do some weird custom things
with at least the network setups, so I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty
and help the community figure this stuff out, but I'm not usually a
developer and I don't know that I want to spend the money and time for vt-d
stuff if there's little chance it'll actually work right now except during
the solstice or something.  So, what are my odds at getting a good result
with what's out there right now, assuming I'm fairly competant?  Is this at
the stage it will kill my pets and laugh at me, or is alpha that will work
if I wave a dead chicken, or beta that mostly works with some caveats, or
other?

Based on my research I'm looking at getting the i7-860 which intel
definitely says has vt-d and the DP55KG which is not listed on
http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/VTdHowTo but is reported several places
(including the intel P55 spec sheets) as supporting vt-d; I assume it's
just too new to be on that wiki page?  Should I be looking at something
else specific?  I'd rather save a little money with the 800 series vs going
to 900 and socket 1366, but not if that's going to likely fail to get to
where I want.

Graphics-wise I already have an nvidia 9500GT and a 9800GTX+ to pick from;
I understand that nvidia may introduce some additional headaches here and
the quadros are more "virtualization friendly" but I really don't have that
kind of money so I'm hoping there's a chance with this one even if I have
to patch for it.  I see Mr. Teo En Ming's video and such which indicate he
got an 8400 GS working at least to some extent, but I don't know what
processor or board that's with.

Last, I'm really not clear on the status of keyboard/mouse for this kind of
setup.  I'm finding mixed messages in the posts out there, but I assume the
ideal goal is to just passthrough an entire usb controller to the domU via
pci passthrough?  Is that working as it should?

Thanks for the work and in advance for any responses.




_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users