Patent · US Active

Memory overcommit by using an emulated IOMMU in a computer system without a host IOMMU

US8954959B2 · kind B2 · utility

14Cited by
7References
21Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateSep 16, 2010
Grant dateFeb 10, 2015
Priority date
Expiry dateMay 21, 2032

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F2009/45583
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method and system for managing direct memory access (DMA) in a computer system without a host input/output memory management unit (IOMMU). The computer system hosts virtual machines and allows memory overcommit. The computer receives, from a guest operating system that runs on a virtual machine, a request for mapping a guest address to a bus address. The computer translates the guest address to a host address and pins a memory page containing the host address to keep the memory page in host memory. The host address is then returned to the guest operating system to allow a device to use the host address as the bus address for direct memory access (DMA) to a buffer managed by the guest operating system.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.