The PCI passthrough feature in OpenStack allows full access and direct control of a physical PCI device in guests. This mechanism is generic for any kind of PCI device, and runs with a Network Interface Card (NIC), Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), or any other devices that can be attached to a PCI bus. Correct driver installation is the only requirement for the guest to properly use the devices.
Some PCI devices provide Single Root I/O Virtualization and Sharing (SR-IOV) capabilities. When SR-IOV is used, a physical device is virtualized and appears as multiple PCI devices. Virtual PCI devices are assigned to the same or different guests. In the case of PCI passthrough, the full physical device is assigned to only one guest and cannot be shared.
Note
For information on creating servers with virtual SR-IOV devices, refer to the Networking Guide.
Limitations
To enable PCI passthrough, follow the steps below:
Note
The PCI device with address 0000:41:00.0
is used as an example. This
will differ between environments.
nova-scheduler
as specified in Configure
nova-scheduler.nova-scheduler
service.Specify the PCI alias for the device.
Configure a PCI alias a1
to request a PCI device with a vendor_id
of
0x8086
and a product_id
of 0x154d
. The vendor_id
and
product_id
correspond the PCI device with address 0000:41:00.0
.
Edit /etc/nova/nova.conf
:
[pci]
alias = { "vendor_id":"8086", "product_id":"154d", "device_type":"type-PF", "name":"a1" }
Refer to pci.alias
for syntax information.
Restart the nova-api
service.
Configure a flavor to request two PCI devices, each with vendor_id
of
0x8086
and product_id
of 0x154d
:
# openstack flavor set m1.large --property "pci_passthrough:alias"="a1:2"
For more information about the syntax for pci_passthrough:alias
, refer to
Flavors.
Enable VT-d and IOMMU. For more information, refer to steps one and two in Create Virtual Functions.
For Hyper-V compute nodes, the requirements are as follows:
In order to check the requirements above and if there are any assignable PCI devices, run the following Powershell commands:
Start-BitsTransfer https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Microsoft/Virtualization-Documentation/master/hyperv-samples/benarm-powershell/DDA/survey-dda.ps1
.\survey-dda.ps1
If the compute node passes all the requirements, the desired assignable PCI devices to be disabled and unmounted from the host, in order to be assignable by Hyper-V. The following can be read for more details: Hyper-V PCI passthrough.
Configure nova-compute
to allow the PCI device to pass through to
VMs. Edit /etc/nova/nova.conf
:
[pci]
passthrough_whitelist = { "address": "0000:41:00.0" }
Alternatively specify multiple PCI devices using whitelisting:
[pci]
passthrough_whitelist = { "vendor_id": "8086", "product_id": "10fb" }
All PCI devices matching the vendor_id
and product_id
are added to
the pool of PCI devices available for passthrough to VMs.
Refer to pci.passthrough_whitelist
for syntax
information.
Specify the PCI alias for the device.
From the Newton release, to resize guest with PCI device, configure the PCI alias on the compute node as well.
Configure a PCI alias a1
to request a PCI device with a vendor_id
of
0x8086
and a product_id
of 0x154d
. The vendor_id
and
product_id
correspond the PCI device with address 0000:41:00.0
.
Edit /etc/nova/nova.conf
:
[pci]
alias = { "vendor_id":"8086", "product_id":"154d", "device_type":"type-PF", "name":"a1" }
Refer to pci.alias
for syntax information.
Restart the nova-compute
service.
The nova-scheduler
selects a destination host that has PCI devices
available with the specified vendor_id
and product_id
that matches the
alias
from the flavor.
# openstack server create --flavor m1.large --image cirros-0.3.5-x86_64-uec --wait test-pci
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