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  • Michael S. Tsirkin's avatar
    vhost_net: a kernel-level virtio server · 3a4d5c94
    Michael S. Tsirkin authored
    What it is: vhost net is a character device that can be used to reduce
    the number of system calls involved in virtio networking.
    Existing virtio net code is used in the guest without modification.
    
    There's similarity with vringfd, with some differences and reduced scope
    - uses eventfd for signalling
    - structures can be moved around in memory at any time (good for
      migration, bug work-arounds in userspace)
    - write logging is supported (good for migration)
    - support memory table and not just an offset (needed for kvm)
    
    common virtio related code has been put in a separate file vhost.c and
    can be made into a separate module if/when more backends appear.  I used
    Rusty's lguest.c as the source for developing this part : this supplied
    me with witty comments I wouldn't be able to write myself.
    
    What it is not: vhost net is not a bus, and not a generic new system
    call. No assumptions are made on how guest performs hypercalls.
    Userspace hypervisors are supported as well as ...
    3a4d5c94