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Bind a PCI card slot to a VM..?
Posted: 30. Oct 2013, 21:51
by spinjector
Is it possible to bind a particular host PCI slot (and the card plugged into it) to a certain guest VM..?
If the answer to this question is host-OS specific, what about a different host-OS such as Linux instead of Windows..?
The guests for this application must be Windows XP, but I can be flexible with the host.
Thanks.
Re: Bind a PCI card slot to a VM..?
Posted: 31. Oct 2013, 05:43
by BillG
No. The vm cannot see the physical hardware of the host. It sees its own virtual hardware.
Keyboard, mouse and USB seem to be visible from the guest but only because VirtualBox passes the data from the physical device to the virtual one. This does not happen for PCI cards.
There has been some work done on PCI passthrough but I believe it only applies to some Linux distros and only some hardware.
Re: Bind a PCI card slot to a VM..?
Posted: 31. Oct 2013, 14:03
by mpack
BillG wrote:There has been some work done on PCI passthrough but I believe it only applies to some Linux distros and only some hardware.
Yes, Linux hosts only. And even there, if anyone has ever gotten it working then they've kept very quiet about it.
And incidentally, VT-d is required even to make the attempt.
Re: Bind a PCI card slot to a VM..?
Posted: 31. Oct 2013, 17:55
by spinjector
Ok thank you both.