[dpdk-dev] Can xenvirt pmd work in xen guest (aka DomU) without xen-vhost in Dom0 ?

[Tan, Jianfeng]

Hi Bill


On 9/30/2017 4:47 PM, Bill Bonaparte wrote:
> Hi, everybody:
>       I am trying to run dpdk in xen guest, after trying dpdk17.05 without
> success, I tried dpdk16.04 again.  and it's sucessful to run testpmd this
> time. but it can't receive any packets.
>       the command I used is :
> ./testpmd -l 1,2 -n 4 --vdev="eth_xenvirt0,mac=a6:38:57:e8:d5:be"
> --vdev="eth_xenvirt1,mac=32:f1:42:55:94:74" -- --total-num-mbufs=2048
>
> I read the xen guide again, I found the guide says:
> DPDK provides a para-virtualization packet switching solution, based on the
> Xen hypervisor’s Grant Table, Note 1, which provides simple and fast packet
> switching capability between guest domains and host domain based on MAC
> address or VLAN tag. This solution is comprised of two components; a Poll
> Mode Driver (PMD) as the front end in the guest domain and a switching back
> end in the host domain.
>
> does it mean that dpdk running in DomU must cooperate with xen-vhost in
> Dom0 ?

Yes, we need to run vhost_xen at dom0 so that xenvirt at domU can work. 
But it has been long lack of test, not sure of it still works.

And FYI, we are going to remove xen support (dom0, xenvirt, vhost_xen) 
in the coming release.

Thanks,
Jianfeng

> I really need your help.
> I appreciate any reply from you .