Virtual I/O Internals

The following document will attempt to detail the internals of a Virtual Function IO (VFIO) driven Mediated Device (Mdev).

Requirements:

Sensitive Instruction List.

Instruction Shim/Binary Translator.

HPA<->GPA Boundary Enforcement.

RPC Mode

File:Mediated Device Access MMU.png

A slide describing Extended Page Table & MMU used in mediated device management.

RPC Mode moves instruction information across a virtual function interface (VF) using Remote Procedure Calls generally by way of soft interrupt (IOCTLs).

File:Mediated Device Access.png

A slide from Neo Gia's presentation at KVM forum.

SR-IOV Mode

SR-IOV Mode involves the communication of instructions from a virtual function (VF) though direct communication to the PCI BAR.