Tracking virtual machine memory modified by a single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) device
US9898430B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Nov 12, 2014 |
| Grant date | Feb 20, 2018 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Apr 19, 2036 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F2009/45583
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Techniques for tracking, by a host system, virtual machine (VM) memory modified by a physical input/output (I/O) device that supports I/O virtualization are provided. In one embodiment, a hypervisor of the host system can receive a hardware interrupt from the physical I/O device, where the hardware interrupt indicates that a virtual function (VF) of the physical I/O device has completed a direct memory access (DMA) write to a guest memory space of a VM running on the host system. In response to the hardware interrupt, the hypervisor can invoke a function implemented by a physical function (PF) driver of the physical I/O device, where the function is configured to inspect the VF's state in order to identify memory portions modified by the DMA write. The hypervisor can then mark, in a hypervisor-level page table, one or more memory pages corresponding to the identified memory portions as dirty pages.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.