NAME
xvif —
Xen backend paravirtualized network
interface
SYNOPSIS
pseudo-device xvif
DESCRIPTION
Thexvif interface forms the backend part of the
paravirtualized drivers used by Xen domains to offer network connectivity.
When the guest domain is NetBSD, the
endpoint of the xvif interface is a
xennet(4) interface. In the XenStore, xvif
and xennet are identified by “vif”
(virtual interface) entries.
All xvif interfaces follow the
“xvifXiY” naming convention, where ‘X’
represents the guest domain identifier, and ‘Y’ an arbitrary
identifier; most of the time, it is the frontend interface identifier, e.g.
“xennetY”.
For convenience, the MAC address of an
xvif interface is chosen by incrementing the third
byte of the MAC address of the frontend device.
Conceptually, frontends and backends drivers are similar to two Ethernet cards connected via a crossover cable.
DIAGNOSTICS
- xvif%di%d: can't read %s/mac: %d
- The MAC address for this interface could not be read from XenStore.
- xvif%di%d: %s is not a valid mac address
- The MAC address specified in the configuration file of the newly created guest domain is invalid.
- xvif%di%d: Ethernet address %s
- MAC address of the
xvifinterface.
SEE ALSO
HISTORY
The xvif driver first appeared in
NetBSD 4.0.
AUTHORS
The xvif driver was written by
Manuel Bouyer
<bouyer@NetBSD.org>.