Re: [libvirt] RFC: setting mac address on network devices being assigned to a guest via PCI passthrough (<hostdev>)

> > In view of the discussion on SCSI passthrough, it seems to me that > this should be attached to an <interface> element: > > <devices> > <interface type='hostdev'> > <source> > <address type='pci' bus='0x06' slot='0x02' function='0x0'/> > </source> > <mac address='00:16:3e:5d:c7:9e'/> > <address type='pci' .../> > </interface> > </devices> Nice! I should have thought of this in my original proposal - it's the logical extension of having networks of type='hostdev'. I would prefer this as well, but it hits one of Dan's criticism's of the original proposal (from https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2011-August/msg01033.html ), so I didn't further consider using a change to <interface>:

On 08/22/2011 at 05:17 AM, Dan Berrange wrote: > The issue I see is that if an application wants to know what > PCI devices have been assigned to a guest, they can no longer > just look at<hostdev> elements. They also need to look at > <interface> elements. If we follow this proposed model in other > areas, we could end up with PCI devices appearing as<disks> > <controllers> and who knows what else.

Since originally proposing the <hostdev> examples for network cards, I've switched to the opinion that this was in fact the wrong thing todo at all. The network devices should be in the <interface> element, so we have access to all the properties that this element allows for. My general view is that <hostdev> should be kept for "opaque" device assignment where we're not caring about what capabilities the device has. Just "blind" assignment of the PCI/USB/ISA hardware device based on their hardware addresses.