[vbox-dev] Documenting VT-d as a network mode

[Frank Mehnert]

On Friday 02 March 2012 03:51:52 Alexey Eromenko wrote:
> I have looked at competitors product documentation (Parallels
> Workstation), and they fully document VT-d as yet another network
> mode.
> Conceptually I fully agree with their approach.
> 
> VirtualBox has 3 levels of network access:
> 1. NAT (layer-3), uses your host's TCP/IP stack. (default)
> 2. Bridge (layer-2), uses your host's Ethernet driver. (bypasses
> host's TCP/IP stack)
> 3. VT-d (layer-1), uses your host's Network Hardware. (bypasses host's
> TCP/IP stack *and* host OS hardware [Ethernet] drivers).

VT-d is rather a hardware feature but no network mode but I get what
you mean.

> ===========================
> I would like to ask the possibility of doing the same for VirtualBox.
> (i.e. adding VT-d to "Chapter 6. Virtual networking")
> 
> I'm unable to help this time, due to lack of VT-d hardware.

PCI device passthrough is still very experimental. At the moment I doubt
that passing through a network card to a VirtualBox guest will work reliably.
And ATM I think this would be another interesting technical feature with
limited value.

Kind regards,

Frank
-- 
Dr.-Ing. Frank Mehnert
Senior Manager Software Development Desktop Virtualization, VirtualBox
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