Scan and assign PCI devices to netvm directly before NetVM start

[marmarek]

Reported by joanna on 10 Apr 2011 11:07 UTC
Currently we scan for NICs and assign them to the default NetVM at install time. This works for most cases, but will not work in the following scenarios:

1. User upgrades their system (not for laptops)
2. User installed Qubes on an external USB driver and now plugged it and booted on a different machine that has different hardware.

Migrated-From: https://wiki.qubes-os.org/ticket/214

[marmarek]

Comment by joanna on 17 Apr 2011 16:13 UTC
But, on the other hand, we should not always assign all devices to each netvm -- some users might wish to use more than one netvm and assign some NICs to netvm #1, and some other to netvm #2, etc.

I think the best way would be to keep in our qubes.xml a property for each netvm whether it should be assigned "all NIC devices" (so is a default and only one netvm), or whether the user decided to assign some select devices to it, in which case we should be updating the .conf files accordingly.

qvm-pref could be used to set which NICs are assigned for each NetVM (by default we would assume a netvm that doesn't have this propery is a default one and get all the NICs on start).

[marmarek]

Comment by joanna on 17 Apr 2011 16:13 UTC
But, on the other hand, we should not always assign all devices to each netvm -- some users might wish to use more than one netvm and assign some NICs to netvm #1, and some other to netvm #2, etc.

I think the best way would be to keep in our qubes.xml a property for each netvm whether it should be assigned "all NIC devices" (so is a default and only one netvm), or whether the user decided to assign some select devices to it, in which case we should be updating the .conf files accordingly.

qvm-pref could be used to set which NICs are assigned for each NetVM (by default we would assume a netvm that doesn't have this propery is a default one and get all the NICs on start).

[marmarek]

Comment by joanna on 28 May 2011 09:10 UTC
Perhaps we will close this ticker of this as part of getting rid of xend .conf files?

[marmarek]

Comment by joanna on 28 May 2011 09:10 UTC
Perhaps we will close this ticker of this as part of getting rid of xend .conf files?

[marmarek]

Comment by marmarek on 10 Jun 2011 17:12 UTC
http://git.qubes-os.org/gitweb/?p=marmarek/core.git;a=commit;h=7ced90832b83f59d853ced79c8424ce34999109b

PCI devices can by assigned to VMs by qvm-prefs.
Warning: still network devices are assigned to pciback driver at boot time. Only network devices.

(will be changed, when USB controllers will be moved to NetVM/some other VM)

[marmarek]

Comment by marmarek on 10 Jun 2011 17:12 UTC
http://git.qubes-os.org/gitweb/?p=marmarek/core.git;a=commit;h=7ced90832b83f59d853ced79c8424ce34999109b

PCI devices can by assigned to VMs by qvm-prefs.
Warning: still network devices are assigned to pciback driver at boot time. Only network devices.

(will be changed, when USB controllers will be moved to NetVM/some other VM)