Open Stack

Yes, PCI devices like GPU or HBA are common resources, admin/user do not need to specify which device to which VM. So current PCI passthrough function can meet user scenarios.

But USB devices have different user scenarios. Take USB key or USB disk as example, admin/user may need the content in USB device but not the device itself, so admin/user should specify which USB device to which VM.

There are other things needed to be considered too, for example USB device may need a matched USB controller but not the default USB 1.1 controller created by qemu.

I'm not clear about how to provide this function but still want to write a wiki so that more people can participate in the discussion.

Thanks,
Jeremy Liu

> -----Original Message-----
> From: yunhong jiang [mailto:yunhong.jiang at linux.intel.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 1:17 AM
> To: OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
> Cc: bpavlovic at mirantis.com; Luohao (brian); Yuanjing (D)
> Subject: Re: [openstack-dev] [nova] Question about USB passthrough
> 
> On Tue, 2014-02-25 at 03:05 +0000, Liuji (Jeremy) wrote:
> > Now that USB devices are used so widely in private/hybrid cloud like
> > used as USB key, and there are no technical issues in libvirt/qemu.
> > I think it a valuable feature in openstack.
> 
> USB key is an interesting scenario. I assume the USB key is just for some
> specific VM, wondering how the admin/user know which usb disk to which VM?
> 
> --jyh
> 
> 
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