4 This document describes the driver set for Unisys Secure Partitioning
7 s-Par is firmware that provides hardware partitioning capabilities for
8 splitting large-scale Intel x86 servers into multiple isolated
9 partitions. s-Par provides a set of para-virtualized device drivers to
10 allow guest partitions on the same server to share devices that would
11 normally be unsharable, specifically:
13 * visornic - network interface
14 * visorhba - scsi disk adapter
15 * visorinput - keyboard and mouse
17 These drivers conform to the standard Linux bus/device model described
18 within Documentation/driver-model/, and utilize a driver named visorbus to
19 present the virtual busses involved. Drivers in the 'visor*' driver set are
20 commonly referred to as "guest drivers" or "client drivers". All drivers
21 except visorbus expose a device of a specific usable class to the Linux guest
22 environment (e.g., block, network, or input), and are collectively referred
23 to as "function drivers".
25 The back-end for each device is owned and managed by a small,
26 single-purpose service partition in the s-Par firmware, which communicates
27 with each guest partition sharing that device through an area of shared memory
28 called a "channel". In s-Par nomenclature, the back-end is often referred to
29 as the "service partition", "IO partition" (for virtual network and scsi disk
30 devices), or "console partition" (for virtual keyboard and mouse devices).
32 Each virtual device requires exactly 1 dedicated channel, which the guest
33 driver and back-end use to communicate. The hypervisor need not intervene
34 (other than normal interrupt handling) in the interactions that occur across
37 NOT covered in this document:
39 * s-Par also supports sharing physical PCI adapters via SR-IOV, but
40 because this requires no specific support in the guest partitions, it will
41 not be discussed in this document. Shared SR-IOV devices should be used
42 wherever possible for highest performance.
44 * Because the s-Par back-end provides a standard EFI framebuffer to each
45 guest, the already-existing efifb Linux driver is used to provide guest
46 video access. Thus, the only s-Par-unique support that is necessary to
47 provide a guest graphics console are for keyboard and mouse (via visorinput).
50 2. Driver Descriptions
51 ----------------------
59 The visorbus driver handles the virtual busses on which all of the virtual
60 devices reside. It provides a registration function named
61 visorbus_register_visor_driver() that is called by each of the function
62 drivers at initialization time, which the function driver uses to tell
63 visorbus about the device classes (via specifying a list of device type
64 GUIDs) it wants to handle. For use by function drivers, visorbus provides
65 implementation for struct visor_driver and struct visor_device, as well
66 as utility functions for communicating with the back-end.
68 visorbus is associated with ACPI id "PNP0A07" in modules.alias, so if built
69 as a module it will typically be loaded automatically via standard udev or
70 systemd (God help us) configurations.
72 visorbus can similarly force auto-loading of function drivers for virtual
73 devices it discovers, as it includes a MODALIAS environment variable of this
74 form in the hotplug uevent environment when each virtual device is
77 visorbus:<device type GUID>
79 visorbus notifies each function driver when a device of its registered class
80 arrives and departs, by calling the function driver's probe() and remove()
83 The actual struct device objects that correspond to each virtual bus and
84 each virtual device are created and owned by visorbus. These device objects
85 are created in response to messages from the s-Par back-end received on a
86 special control channel called the "controlvm channel" (each guest partition
87 has access to exactly 1 controlvm channel), and have a lifetime that is
88 independent of the function drivers that control them.
90 2.1.2. "struct visor device" Function Driver Interfaces
91 -------------------------------------------------------
93 The interface between visorbus and its function drivers is defined in
94 visorbus.h, and described below.
96 When a visor function driver loads, it calls visorbus_register_visor_driver()
97 to register itself with visorbus. The significant information passed in this
98 exchange is as follows:
100 * the GUID(s) of the channel type(s) that are handled by this driver, as
101 well as a "friendly name" identifying each (this will be published under
102 /sys/devices/visorbus<x>/dev<y>)
104 * the addresses of callback functions to be called whenever a virtual
105 device/channel with the appropriate channel-type GUID(s) appears or
108 * the address of a "channel_interrupt" function, which will be automatically
109 called at specific intervals to enable the driver to poll the device
112 The following functions implemented within each function driver will be
113 called automatically by the visorbus driver at appropriate times:
115 * The probe() function notifies about the creation of each new virtual
116 device/channel instance.
118 * The remove() function notifies about the destruction of a virtual
119 device/channel instance.
121 * The channel_interrupt() function is called at frequent intervals to
122 give the function driver an opportunity to poll the virtual device channel
123 for requests. Information is passed to this function to enable the
124 function driver to use the visorchannel_signalinsert() and
125 visorchannel_signalremove() functions to respond to and initiate activity
126 over the channel. (Note that since it is the visorbus driver that
127 determines when this is called, it is very easy to switch to
128 interrupt-driven mechanisms when available for particular virtual device
131 * The pause() function is called should it ever be necessary to direct the
132 function driver to temporarily stop accessing the device channel. An
133 example of when this is needed is when the service partition implementing
134 the back-end of the virtual device needs to be recovered. After a
135 successful return of pause(), the function driver must not access the
136 device channel until a subsequent resume() occurs.
138 * The resume() function is the "book-end" to pause(), and is described above.
140 If/when a function driver creates a Linux device (that needs to be accessed
141 from usermode), it calls visorbus_registerdevnode(), passing the major and
142 minor number of the device. (Of course not all function drivers will need
143 to do this.) This simply creates the appropriate "devmajorminor" sysfs entry
144 described below, so that a hotplug script can use it to create a device node.
146 2.1.3. sysfs Advertised Information
147 -----------------------------------
149 Because visorbus is a standard Linux bus driver in the model described in
150 Documentation/driver-model/, the hierarchy of s-Par virtual devices is
151 published in the sysfs tree beneath /bus/visorbus/, e.g.,
152 /sys/bus/visorbus/devices/ might look like:
154 vbus1:dev1 -> ../../../devices/visorbus1/vbus1:dev1
155 vbus1:dev2 -> ../../../devices/visorbus1/vbus1:dev2
156 vbus1:dev3 -> ../../../devices/visorbus1/vbus1:dev3
157 vbus2:dev0 -> ../../../devices/visorbus2/vbus2:dev0
158 vbus2:dev1 -> ../../../devices/visorbus2/vbus2:dev1
159 vbus2:dev2 -> ../../../devices/visorbus2/vbus2:dev2
160 visorbus1 -> ../../../devices/visorbus1
161 visorbus2 -> ../../../devices/visorbus2
165 * Each visorbus<n> entry denotes the existence of a struct visor_device
166 denoting virtual bus #<n>. A unique s-Par channel exists for each such
169 * Virtual bus numbers uniquely identify s-Par back-end service partitions.
170 In this example, bus 1 corresponds to the s-Par console partition
171 (controls keyboard, video, and mouse), whereas bus 2 corresponds to the
172 s-Par IO partition (controls network and disk).
174 * Each vbus<x>:dev<y> entry denotes the existence of a struct visor_device
175 denoting virtual device #<y> outboard of virtual bus #<x>. A unique s-Par
176 channel exists for each such virtual device.
178 * If a function driver has loaded and claimed a particular device, the
179 bus/visorbus/devices/vbus<x>:dev<y>/driver symlink will indicate that
182 Every active visorbus device will have a sysfs subtree under:
184 /sys/devices/visorbus<x>/vbus<x>:dev<y>/
186 The following files exist under /sys/devices/visorbus<x>/vbus<x>:dev<y>:
188 subsystem link to sysfs tree that describes the
189 visorbus bus type; e.g.:
190 ../../../bus/visorbus
192 driver link to sysfs tree that describes the
193 function driver controlling this device;
195 ../../../bus/visorbus/drivers/visorhba
196 Note that this "driver" link will not exist
197 if the appropriate function driver has not
202 <devname> if applicable, each file here identifies (via
203 ... its file contents) the
204 "<major>:<minor>" needed for a device node to
205 enable access from usermode. There is exactly
206 one file here for each different device node
207 that can be accessed (from usermode). Note
208 that this info is provided by a particular
209 function driver, so these will not exist
210 until AFTER the appropriate function driver
211 controlling this device class is loaded.
213 channel properties of the device channel (all in
216 clientpartition handle identifying the guest (client) side
217 of this channel, e.g. 0x10000000.
219 nbytes total size of this channel in bytes
221 physaddr the guest physical address for the base of
224 typeguid a GUID identifying the channel type, in
225 xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx notation
227 typename a "friendly name" for this channel type, e.g.,
228 "keyboard". Note that this name is provided by
229 a particular function driver, so "typename"
230 will return an empty string until AFTER the
231 appropriate function driver controlling this
232 channel type is loaded
234 zoneguid a GUID identifying the channel zone, in
235 xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx notation
241 The visorhba driver registers with visorbus as the function driver to
242 handle virtual scsi disk devices, specified using the
243 SPAR_VHBA_CHANNEL_PROTOCOL_UUID type in the visorbus_register_visor_driver()
244 call. visorhba uses scsi_add_host() to expose a Linux block device
245 (e.g., /sys/block/) in the guest environment for each s-Par virtual device.
247 visorhba provides access to a shared SCSI host bus adapter and one or more
248 disk devices, by proxying SCSI commands between the guest and the service
249 partition that owns the shared SCSI adapter, using a channel between the
250 guest and the service partition. The disks that appear on the shared bus
251 are defined by the s-Par configuration and enforced by the service partition,
252 while the guest driver handles sending commands and handling responses. Each
253 disk is shared as a whole to a guest. Sharing the bus adapter in this way
254 provides resiliency; should the device encounter an error, only the service
255 partition is rebooted, and the device is reinitialized. This allows
256 guests to continue running and to recover from the error.
258 When compiled as a module, visorhba can be autoloaded by visorbus in
259 standard udev/systemd environments, as it includes the modules.alias
262 "visorbus:"+SPAR_VHBA_CHANNEL_PROTOCOL_UUID_STR
266 alias visorbus:414815ed-c58c-11da-95a9-00e08161165f visorhba
272 The visornic driver registers with visorbus as the function driver to
273 handle virtual network devices, specified using the
274 SPAR_VNIC_CHANNEL_PROTOCOL_UUID type in the visorbus_register_visor_driver()
275 call. visornic uses register_netdev() to expose a Linux device of class net
276 (e.g., /sys/class/net/) in the guest environment for each s-Par virtual
279 visornic provides a paravirtualized network interface to a
280 guest by proxying buffer information between the guest and the service
281 partition that owns the shared network interface, using a channel
282 between the guest and the service partition. The connectivity of this
283 interface with the shared interface and possibly other guest
284 partitions is defined by the s-Par configuration and enforced by the
285 service partition; the guest driver handles communication and link
288 When compiled as a module, visornic can be autoloaded by visorbus in
289 standard udev/systemd environments, as it includes the modules.alias
292 "visorbus:"+SPAR_VNIC_CHANNEL_PROTOCOL_UUID_STR
296 alias visorbus:8cd5994d-c58e-11da-95a9-00e08161165f visornic
302 The visorinput driver registers with visorbus as the function driver to
303 handle human input devices, specified using the
304 SPAR_KEYBOARD_CHANNEL_PROTOCOL_UUID and SPAR_MOUSE_CHANNEL_PROTOCOL_UUID
305 types in the visorbus_register_visor_driver() call. visorinput uses
306 input_register_device() to expose devices of class input
307 (e.g., /sys/class/input/) for virtual keyboard and virtual mouse devices.
308 A s-Par virtual keyboard device maps 1-to-1 with a Linux input device
309 named "visor Keyboard", while a s-Par virtual mouse device has 2 Linux input
310 devices created for it: 1 named "visor Wheel", and 1 named "visor Mouse".
312 By registering as input class devices, modern versions of X will
313 automatically find and properly use s-Par virtual keyboard and mouse devices.
314 As the s-Par back-end reports keyboard and mouse activity via events on the
315 virtual device channel, the visorinput driver delivers the activity to the
316 Linux environment by calling input_report_key() and input_report_abs().
318 You can interact with the guest console using the usyscon Partition Desktop
319 (a.k.a., "pd") application, provided as part of s-Par. After installing the
320 usyscon Partition Desktop into a Linux environment via the
321 usyscon_partitiondesktop-*.rpm, or into a Windows environment via
322 PartitionDesktop.msi, you will be able to launch a console for your guest
323 Linux environment by clicking the console icon in the s-Par web UI.
325 When compiled as a module, visorinput can be autoloaded by visorbus in
326 standard udev/systemd environments, as it includes the modules.alias
329 "visorbus:"+SPAR_MOUSE_CHANNEL_PROTOCOL_UUID_STR
330 "visorbus:"+SPAR_KEYBOARD_CHANNEL_PROTOCOL_UUID_STR
334 alias visorbus:c73416d0-b0b8-44af-b304-9d2ae99f1b3d visorinput
335 alias visorbus:addf07d4-94a9-46e2-81c3-61abcdbdbd87 visorinput
338 3. Minimum Required Driver Set
339 ------------------------------
341 visorbus is required for every Linux guest running under s-Par.
343 visorhba is typically required for a Linux guest running under s-Par, as it
344 is required if your guest boot disk is a virtual device provided by the s-Par
345 back-end, which is the default configuration. However, for advanced
346 configurations where the Linux guest boots via an SR-IOV-provided HBA or
347 SAN disk for example, visorhba is not technically required.
349 visornic is typically required for a Linux guest running under s-Par, as it
350 is required if your guest network interface is a virtual device provided by
351 the s-Par back-end, which is the default configuration. However, for
352 configurations where the Linux guest is provided with an SR-IOV NIC
353 for example, visornic is not technically required.
355 visorinput is only required for a Linux guest running under s-Par if you
356 require graphics-mode access to your guest console.