I am interested in this kinds of applications too.
Can we communicate via email?
my email address is aleck_liu@163.com

Thanks
alex.

Examples:

You have two video cards and two network cards, you want to run WinXP and Linux with WinXP using one video card and one network card with Linux using the other ones.

You do NOT want to Virtualize the hardware, you want to assign it, permanantly (both for performance issues and because it would be foolish to be able to Virtualize when you have two of something (like Video monitors or network cards)).

We desire direct hardware access to allow WinXP OpenGL Accelerated drivers (from the Manufacturer, and only available for Windows) to run unfettered on the WinXP side and we want to be able to run Wireshark (or other program requiring direct access to the network card) on the Linux side.

Let us assign hardware (and lock it) to a process.

You would want to Virtualize the processor and may desire to Virtualize the USB ports, Firewire, etc.

Lets (at least) have a (short / long?) list of devices that can be put into a “Request Pool” and allocated.

EG:

Monitor 1 would be assigned in Xen’s boot script to be called “Windows_Video_Monitor” and the name “Windows_Video_Monitor” could be ‘mapped’ to “VGA” so when Windows boots it sees that there is a “VGA” monitor (only one, it can’t see the other) available and ‘grabs’ it.

Monitor 2 would be assigned in Xen’s boot script to be called “Linux_Video_Monitor” and the name “Linux_Video_Monitor” could be ‘mapped’ to “VGA” so when Linux boots it sees that there is a “VGA” monitor (only one, it can’t see the other) available and ‘grabs’ it.

There could be a “Helper Executable” that could be ran when WinXP or Linux starts to tell the OS the name of the “Video Device Driver” so that WinXP could choose to use “Windows_Video_Monitor” and set the ‘screen resolution and bits’ to a prechosen vaule and when Linux starts it’s “Helper Executable” would choose “Linux_Video_Monitor” as it’s video device and set it up to use ‘screen resolution and bits’ that may (or may not) differ from the WinXP setup.

Another example is just ONE video card and 16 ethernet ports with WinXP and half a dozen flavors of Linux running. All would _share_ the same monitor (and it would be virtualized and ‘swapable’ _BUT_ each process would be locked to ONE (or Bridged to a few) ethernet ports to: Improve performance, ensure _absolute_ security and do away with _unneccesary_ Virtualization where it is not desired.

Sometimes a great thing (Virtualization) can go too far (Full Virtualization, and no ability to ‘assign / lock’) so I ask for the ability to have a little less Virtualization (and a little more control).

Thanks,
Rob

This thread about consistent LVM snapshots from Dom0 is something I’d like to see:

http://marc.info/?l=xen-devel&m=119695909223759&w=4

I don’t recall this happening as part of 3.3 (I could be wrong – we haven’t installed 3.3 yet).