Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1760666AbZJMRT2 (ORCPT ); Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:19:28 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1760647AbZJMRT1 (ORCPT ); Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:19:27 -0400 Received: from smtp-outbound-1.vmware.com ([65.115.85.69]:47779 "EHLO smtp-outbound-1.vmware.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1760645AbZJMRT0 (ORCPT ); Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:19:26 -0400 Subject: Re: SCSI driver for VMware's virtual HBA - V5. From: Alok Kataria Reply-To: akataria@vmware.com To: Jeremy Fitzhardinge Cc: James Bottomley , Randy Dunlap , Mike Christie , Bart Van Assche , "linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org" , Matthew Wilcox , "pv-drivers@vmware.com" , Roland Dreier , Greg KH , LKML , "virtualization@lists.linux-foundation.org" , Chris Wright , "Chetan.Loke@Emulex.Com" , Daniel Walker , Rolf Eike Beer , Robert Love , Andrew Morton In-Reply-To: <4AD4AEAA.2080209@goop.org> References: <1254336812.19921.23.camel@ank32.eng.vmware.com> <20091002004725.GP3958@sequoia.sous-sol.org> <1254789028.15233.54.camel@ank32.eng.vmware.com> <1255444557.2855.95.camel@localhost.localdomain> <4AD4AEAA.2080209@goop.org> Content-Type: text/plain Organization: VMware INC. Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:18:50 -0700 Message-Id: <1255454330.12792.34.camel@ank32.eng.vmware.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.12.3 (2.12.3-8.el5_2.3) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2032 Lines: 52 Hi, On Tue, 2009-10-13 at 09:45 -0700, Jeremy Fitzhardinge wrote: > On 10/13/09 07:35, James Bottomley wrote: > >> Yep, below is a patch with the rename, the driver is now called > >> vmw_pvscsi. Do let me know if you have any other comments. Thanks. > >> > > I'm still curious to know what the 'p' in the name stands for. Surely > > this is a fully virtual driver, not a paravirtual one? > > There is a very thin line of difference between para-virtualized and fully virtualized in this case, and it depends on how we are looking at it. This device uses the PCI bus for communication rather than implementing a virtualized bus of some sought and hence is more like any other PCI device. Though it's not like we are emulating an existing device, VMware implemented its own device backend which has a particular ABI, hence this is not a fully virtualized solution either. The reason we chose to name the backend as pvscsi is since the solution is para-virtual in nature. As I said earlier, we would prefer to keep pvscsi in the name since the backend storage adapter is called as PVSCSI and it will be better to keep the confusion down to minimum if the driver is named something similar. Finally, I will like to add that these are just names I don't think we need to be too picky about them, the driver is prefixed with "vmw", hence people do know that the driver is VMware specific. Thanks, Alok > > I would assume that "pv" does stand for paravirtual. The terminology is > a bit screwy: "fully virtualized" means that the device looks like a > real hardware device that is being emulated. "Paravirtualized" means > that it is a completely virtual device which isn't an emulation of > anything; the guests know this this and talk to it accordingly. > J > -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/