Inter-VM Shared Memory¶
Overview¶
As Zephyr is enabled to run as a guest OS on Qemu and ACRN it might be necessary to make VMs aware of each other, or aware of the host. This is made possible by exposing a shared memory among parties via a feature called ivshmem, which stands for inter-VM Shared Memory.
The Two types are supported: a plain shared memory (ivshmem-plain) or a shared memory with the ability for a VM to generate an interruption on another, and thus to be interrupted as well itself (ivshmem-doorbell).
Please refer to the official Qemu ivshmem documentation for more information.
Support¶
Zephyr supports both version: plain and doorbell. Ivshmem driver can be build by enabling :kconfig:`CONFIG_IVSHMEM`. By default, this will expose the plain version. :kconfig:`CONFIG_IVSHMEM_DOORBELL` needs to be enabled to get the doorbell version.
Because the doorbell version uses MSI-X vectors to support notification vectors, the :kconfig:`CONFIG_IVSHMEM_MSI_X_VECTORS` has to be tweaked to the amount of vectors that will be needed.
Note that a tiny shell module can be exposed to test the ivshmem feature by enabling :kconfig:`CONFIG_IVSHMEM_SHELL`.
API Reference¶
- 
group ivshmem
- ivshmem reference API - Typedefs - 
typedef int (*ivshmem_register_handler_f)(const struct device *dev, struct k_poll_signal *signal, uint16_t vector)¶
 - Functions - 
size_t ivshmem_get_mem(const struct device *dev, uintptr_t *memmap)¶
- Get the inter-VM shared memory. - Parameters
- dev – Pointer to the device structure for the driver instance 
- memmap – A pointer to fill in with the memory address 
 
- Returns
- the size of the memory mapped, or 0 
 
 - 
uint32_t ivshmem_get_id(const struct device *dev)¶
- Get our VM ID. - Parameters
- dev – Pointer to the device structure for the driver instance 
 
- Returns
- our VM ID or 0 if we are not running on doorbell version 
 
 - 
uint16_t ivshmem_get_vectors(const struct device *dev)¶
- Get the number of interrupt vectors we can use. - Parameters
- dev – Pointer to the device structure for the driver instance 
 
- Returns
- the number of available interrupt vectors 
 
 - 
int ivshmem_int_peer(const struct device *dev, uint32_t peer_id, uint16_t vector)¶
- Interrupt another VM. - Parameters
- dev – Pointer to the device structure for the driver instance 
- peer_id – The VM ID to interrupt 
- vector – The interrupt vector to use 
 
- Returns
- 0 on success, a negative errno otherwise 
 
 - 
int ivshmem_register_handler(const struct device *dev, struct k_poll_signal *signal, uint16_t vector)¶
- Register a vector notification (interrupt) handler. - Note: The returned status, if positive, to a raised signal is the vector that generated the signal. This lets the possibility to the user to have one signal for all vectors, or one per-vector. - Parameters
- dev – Pointer to the device structure for the driver instance 
- signal – A pointer to a valid and ready to be signaled struct k_poll_signal. Or NULL to unregister any handler registered for the given vector. 
- vector – The interrupt vector to get notification from 
 
- Returns
- 0 on success, a negative errno otherwise 
 
 - 
struct ivshmem_driver_api¶
- #include <ivshmem.h>
 
- 
typedef int (*