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PCIBACK(4)                Device Drivers Manual (xen)               PCIBACK(4)

NAME
     pciback - Xen backend paravirtualized PCI pass-through driver

SYNOPSIS
     pciback* at pci?

DESCRIPTION
     The pciback driver is the backend part of the PCI pass-through
     functionality that can be used by the Xen dom0 to export pci(4) devices
     to a guest domain.  To export a PCI device to a guest domain, the device
     has to be attached to pciback in the dom0.

     When the guest domain is NetBSD, the device attached to the pciback
     driver will attach to a xpci(4) bus inside the guest domain.

EXAMPLES
     To attach a device to the pciback driver, follow these steps:
           1.   look for the device PCI ID, via pcictl(8).
           2.   edit boot.cfg(5) and add the PCI ID to the list of PCI IDs
                that you want to attach to pciback, in bus:device.function
                notation.  The list is passed to dom0 module via the
                pciback.hide parameter:
                      pciback.hide=(bus:dev.fun)(bus:dev.func)(...)
                See also boot(8).
           3.   reboot dom0.
           4.   add the PCI ID to the list of PCI devices in the domain
                configuration file:
                      pci = ['bus:dev.fun', '...']
           5.   start the guest domain.

SEE ALSO
     pci(4), xpci(4), boot(8), pcictl(8)

HISTORY
     The pciback driver first appeared in NetBSD 5.1.

AUTHORS
     The pciback driver was written by Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@NetBSD.org>.

CAVEATS
     Currently, to attach a device to the pciback backend, this procedure has
     to be performed at boot(8) time.  In the future, it will be possible to
     do it without requiring a dom0 reboot.

SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
     As PCI passthrough offers the possibility for guest domains to send
     arbitrary PCI commands to a physical device, this has direct impact on
     the overall stability and security of the system.  For example, in case
     of erroneous or malicious commands, the device could overwrite physical
     memory portions, via DMA.

NetBSD 10.99                    January 8, 2011                   NetBSD 10.99