[[!template id=project

title="pv-on-hvm - Paravirtualised Driver Support with drivers in an HVM container"

contact="""
[port-xen](mailto:port-xen@NetBSD.org)
"""

mentors="""
"""

category="kernel"
difficulty="hard"
duration="48 hours"

description="""
Abstract: This is the first step towards PVH mode. This is relevant
only for DomU.
Speeds up amd64 - PV on amd64 has sub-optimal TLB and
syscall overhead due to privilege level sharing
between kernel and userland.

Deliverables: 

* operational PV drivers (netif.h, blkif.h) on HVM mode.

Implementation: 

* Xen needs to be detected at boottime.
* The shared page and hypercall interface need to be setup.
* xenbus(4) attachment during bootime configuration.

Scope (Timelines):

This project involves intrusive kernel configuration changes, since
NetBSD currently has separate native (GENERIC) and xen (XEN3_DOMU)
kernels. A "hybrid" build is required to bring in the PV drivers and
xen infrastructure support such as xenbus(4).

Once the hypercall page is up however, progress should be faster.

See: 

<http://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/XenParavirtOps>
and
<http://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/PV_on_HVM>

"""

]]