Re: [PATCH 0/6] VSOCK for Linux upstreaming

[Stephen Hemminger]

On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 10:00:38 -0800
George Zhang <georgezhang@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> * * *
> This series of VSOCK linux upstreaming patches include latest udpate from
> VMware.
> 
> Summary of changes:
> 	- Add include/linux/socket.h for AF_VSOCK.
>         - Cleanup some comments.
>         - Cleanup makefiles.
> 
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
> In an effort to improve the out-of-the-box experience with Linux
> kernels for VMware users, VMware is working on readying the Virtual
> Machine Communication Interface (vmw_vmci) and VMCI Sockets (VSOCK)
> (vmw_vsock) kernel modules for inclusion in the Linux kernel. The
> purpose of this post is to acquire feedback on the vmw_vsock kernel
> module. The vmw_vmci kernel module has been presented in an early post.
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
> VMCI Sockets allows virtual machines to communicate with host kernel
> modules and the VMware hypervisors. VMCI Sockets kernel module has
> dependency on VMCI kernel module. User level applications both in
> a virtual machine and on the host can use vmw_vmci through VMCI
> Sockets API which facilitates fast and efficient communication
> between guest virtual machines and their host. A socket
> address family designed to be compatible with UDP and TCP at the
> interface level. Today, VMCI and VMCI Sockets are used by the VMware
> shared folders (HGFS) and various VMware Tools components inside the
> guest for zero-config, network-less access to VMware host services. In
> addition to this, VMware's users are using VMCI Sockets for various
> applications, where network access of the virtual machine is
> restricted or non-existent. Examples of this are VMs communicating
> with device proxies for proprietary hardware running as host
> applications and automated testing of applications running within
> virtual machines.
> 
> The VMware VMCI Sockets are similar to other socket types, like
> Berkeley UNIX socket interface. The VMCI sockets module supports
> both connection-oriented stream sockets like TCP, and connectionless
> datagram sockets like UDP. The VSOCK protocol family is defined as
> "AF_VSOCK" and the socket operations split for SOCK_DGRAM and
> SOCK_STREAM.
> 
> For additional information about the use of VMCI and in particular
> VMCI Sockets, please refer to the VMCI Socket Programming Guide
> available at https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vmci-sdk/.
> 

This should go to netdev as well since it is a new address family.
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