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Having the virtual IOMMU created with --iommu is one thing, but we also need a way to decide if a virtio-blk device should be attached to this virtual IOMMU or not. That's why we introduce an extra option "iommu" with the value "on" or "off". By default, the device is not attached, which means "iommu=off". One side effect of this new option is that we had to introduce a new option for the disk path, simply called "path=". Signed-off-by: Sebastien Boeuf <sebastien.boeuf@intel.com>
71 lines
3.2 KiB
Markdown
71 lines
3.2 KiB
Markdown
# How to use virtio-fs
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In the context of virtualization, it is always convenient to be able to share a directory from the host with the guest.
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__virtio-fs__, also known as __vhost-user-fs__ is a virtual device defined by the VIRTIO specification which allows any VMM to perform filesystem sharing.
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## Pre-requisites
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### The daemon
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This virtual device relies on the _vhost-user_ protocol, which assumes the backend (device emulation) is handled by a dedicated process running on the host. This daemon is called __virtiofsd__ and needs to be present on the host.
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_Install virtiofsd_
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```bash
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VIRTIOFSD_URL="$(curl --silent https://api.github.com/repos/intel/nemu/releases/latest | grep "browser_download_url" | grep "virtiofsd-x86_64" | grep -o 'https://.*[^ "]')"
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wget --quiet $VIRTIOFSD_URL -O "virtiofsd"
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chmod +x "virtiofsd"
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sudo setcap cap_sys_admin+epi "virtiofsd"
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```
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_Create shared directory_
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```bash
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mkdir /tmp/shared_dir
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```
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_Run virtiofsd_
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```bash
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./virtiofsd \
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-d \
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-o vhost_user_socket=/tmp/virtiofs \
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-o source=/tmp/shared_dir \
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-o cache=none
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```
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The `cache=none` option here is an important one as it tells the daemon not to try any memory mapping of the files, but instead to use the _virtqueues_ to convey the files content. The support for the memory mapping of the files will be added later.
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### The kernel
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In order to leverage __virtio-fs__ support from within the guest, and because the code has not been merged in upstream Linux kernel yet, it is required to build a custom kernel embedding the patches.
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The following branch `virtio-pmem_and_virtio-fs` on the repository https://github.com/sboeuf/linux.git includes all the needed patches to support __virtio-fs__.
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Make sure to build a kernel out of this branch that can be then used to boot the VM.
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## How to share directories with cloud-hypervisor
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### Start the VM
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Once the daemon is running, the option `--fs` from __cloud-hypervisor__ needs to be used.
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Direct kernel boot option is preferred since we need to provide the custom kernel including the __virtio-fs__ patches. We could boot from `hypervisor-fw` if we had previously edited the image to replace the kernel binary.
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Because _vhost-user_ expects a dedicated process (__virtiofsd__ in this case) to be able to access the guest RAM to communicate through the _virtqueues_ with the driver running in the guest, `--memory` option needs to be slightly modified. It needs to specify a backing file for the memory so that an external process can access it.
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Assuming you have `clear-kvm.img` and `custom-vmlinux.bin` on your system, here is the __cloud-hypervisor__ command you need to run:
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```bash
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./cloud-hypervisor \
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--cpus 4 \
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--memory "size=512,file=/dev/shm" \
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--disk path=clear-kvm.img \
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--kernel custom-vmlinux.bin \
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--cmdline "console=ttyS0 reboot=k panic=1 nomodules root=/dev/vda3" \
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--fs tag=virtiofs,sock=/tmp/virtiofs,num_queues=1,queue_size=512
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```
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### Mount the shared directory
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The last step is to mount the shared directory inside the guest, using the `virtio_fs` filesystem type.
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```bash
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mkdir mount_dir
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mount \
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-t virtio_fs /dev/null mount_dir/ \
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-o tag=virtiofs,rootmode=040000,user_id=0,group_id=0
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```
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The `tag` needs to be consistent with what has been provided through the __cloud-hypervisor__ command line.
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