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SubjectRe: Linux with kvm-intel locks up VMplayer guest is started
Martin Michlmayr wrote:
> * Anthony Liguori <anthony@codemonkey.ws> [2008-06-17 08:16]:
>
>> VMware is a binary kernel module that's out of kernel. KVM is not
>> misbehaving and the fact that VMware breaks when the KVM module is
>> loaded isn't our problem. If they submitted their code for
>> inclusion in mainline, we could possibly come up with solution for
>> arbitrating who is using VT.
>>
>
> I feared I'd get a response like this. But unless this is a known
> issue in VMware (which I don't think it is), you don't know whether
> it's not a bug in kvm-intel.
>

We know exactly what the problem is. KVM activates VT unconditionally.
There's no hardware mechanism to arbitrate access to VT. KVM is the
only thing in the Linux kernel that uses VT so we don't have a software
mechanism to arbitrate access to VT.

If the VMware code was upstream, then we could work together to make a
software arbitration mechanism. It's not, and worse yet, it's closed
source so there's no chance it will be. Even if someone wrote an
arbitration mechanism and got VMware to use it, it still shouldn't be
merged because KVM would be the only thing using that mechanism
upstream. I'm not interested in adding kernel infrastructure to support
external binary kernel modules.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori



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