VIRTIO-IOMMU Driver Merged For Linux 5.3 Kernel

Written by Michael Larabel in Virtualization on 16 July 2019 at 08:28 PM EDT. 2 Comments
VIRTUALIZATION
With the VirtIO standard for cross-hypervisor compatibility of different virtualized components there is a virtual IOMMU device that is now backed by a working driver in the Linux 5.3 kernel.

The VirtIO specification provides for a virtual IOMMU device as of the v0.8 specification that is platform agnostic and manages direct memory accesses from emulated or physical devices in an efficient manner.

Patches for a Linux VirtIO-IOMMU driver have been floating around since last year while finally this week for the Linux 5.3 kernel merge window it's been queued up for landing. This VirtIO IOMMU driver is coming as part of the VirtIO/Vhost fixes/features/performance work for this next kernel.

Patches are pending for QEMU to support this VirtIO IOMMU functionality.
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