[libvirt-users] Host should not touch passed-through USB device, how?

[Andreas Ntaflos]

On Tuesday 01 June 2010 19:42:55 Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
> > > So I am looking for a way to make sure the host passes through
> > > the USB device (in its entirety) without trying to touch it and
> > > claim it as its own. Preferably without disabling the USB
> > > storage subsystem completely on the host.
> > > 
> > > Any ideas? Is there a best practice for such things in the
> > > Libvirt world? Or any other world?
> > 
> > For PCI devices, libvirt automatically performs a device reset and
> > some other voodoo to make sure the host doesn't try to use the
> > device. Maybe there is something similar that libvirt can do for
> > USB devices as well? I'm not very knowledgable about that stuff so
> > I can't say for certain.
> 
> Yes there is the same. We need to finish implementing identical
> infrastructure to that used for PCI devices. We need to do resets
> and bind/unbind host device drivers, and implement the so called
> 'managed' mode.

Hi, 

thanks to both of you for your replies!

Great to know you guys are working on it, but just to be clear: at the 
moment Libvirt does not yet see to it that USB devices are unbound from 
their drivers on the host?

Do you have any idea how I could perform the necessary steps by myself 
so that my particular USB GSM modem is unbound from and not accessed by 
the host? I am not very familiar with USB device and driver management 
these days; it has just gotten too easy: plug the device in and wait for 
the desktop environment to do something :)

Thanks again, 

Andreas
-- 
Andreas Ntaflos
Vienna, Austria

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