Hardware dedication for virtual machines and virtual environments

摘要

A system and method for implementing direct attachment of VMs, implemented on a computer system, to hardware devices attached to the computer system. Direct attachment architecture is implemented. The direct attachment is an exclusive dedication of a hardware device to a VM, where a particular hardware device is assigned to a particular VM. When the VM is not activated, the hardware device can be re-assigned to another VM. At system start up, hardware devices are masked from a host OS of a computer system and are automatically attached to the assigned VMs.

主权项

1. A method for assigning a hardware device to a Virtual Machine (VM), the method comprising:
on a computer system with a host operating system (OS) and a Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM), implementing at least one VM running under control of the VMM; giving the VM exclusive control of the hardware device by bypassing the VMM when the VM interfaces with the hardware device; and isolating the hardware device by modifying allocation of devices of the host OS at boot time so that the host OS sees the hardware device as inactive, wherein the isolating is provided by (a) patching of BIOS of the computer system or (b) patching an EFI of the computer system.