OASIS members and other interested parties, 

The Virtual I/O Device (VIRTIO) TC members [1] have produced an updated Committee Specification Draft (CSD) and submitted this specification for 15-day public review:

Virtual I/O Device (VIRTIO) Version 1.0

Committee Specification Draft 04 / Public Review Draft 04

28 May 2015

Specification overview: 

This document describes the specifications of the "virtio" family of devices. These devices are found in virtual environments, yet by design they are not all that different from physical devices, and this document treats them as such. This allows the guest to use standard drivers and discovery mechanisms.

The purpose of virtio and this specification is that virtual environments and guests should have a straightforward, efficient, standard and extensible mechanism for virtual devices, rather than boutique per-environment or per-OS mechanisms.

Among multiple other enhancements and corrections, the Virtio specification now includes support for the memory balloon device for managing guest memory. This puts Virtio 1.0 at feature parity with Virtio 0.9. 

This is the first public review of VIRTIO since it was approved as Committee Specification 02 (CS02). The files http://docs.oasis-open.org/virtio/virtio/v1.0/csprd04/virtio-v1.0-csprd04-diff.html and http://docs.oasis-open.org/virtio/virtio/v1.0/csprd04/virtio-v1.0-csprd04-diff.pdf include all changes since CS02 highlighted.  

TC Description:

The goal of the OASIS Virtual I/O Device (VIRTIO) TC is to simplify virtual devices, making them more extensible and more recognizable.

The purpose of VIRTIO is to ensure that virtual environments and guests have a straightforward, efficient, standard, and extensible mechanism for virtual devices, rather than boutique per-environment or per-OS mechanisms.

Public Review Period:

The public review starts 18 June 2015 at 00:00 UTC and ends 02 July 2015 at 23:59 UTC. 

This is the first public review of VIRTIO since it was approved as Committee Specification 02 (CS02). The files http://docs.oasis-open.org/virtio/virtio/v1.0/csprd04/virtio-v1.0-csprd04-diff.html and http://docs.oasis-open.org/virtio/virtio/v1.0/csprd04/virtio-v1.0-csprd04-diff.pdf include all changes since CS02 highlighted [2]. This 15-day review is limited in scope to these changes.  

This is an open invitation to comment. OASIS solicits feedback from potential users, developers and others, whether OASIS members or not, for the sake of improving the interoperability and quality of its technical work.

Reviewers may provide comments directly from the comment-tag version of document. The file

contains the HTML version of the draft with a “[comment?]” link next to each section heading. Clicking on this link will launch your email application and begin a message to virtio-comment@lists.oasis-open.org with the specific section number and title in the subject line. Simply enter your comment and click send.

Note that you must be subscribed to the comment mailing list before sending feedback. Instructions on how to subscribe can be found at https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/comments/index.php?wg_abbrev=virtio.

URIs:

The prose specification document and related files are available here:

Editable source (Authoritative):

HTML: 

HTML with inline tags for direct commenting:

PDF: 

ZIP distribution files (complete):

For your convenience, OASIS provides a complete package of the prose specification and related files in a ZIP distribution file. You can download the ZIP file here:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/virtio/virtio/v1.0/csprd04/virtio-v1.0-csprd04.zip 

Additional information about this specification and the VIRTIO TC may be found on the TC's public home page located at:

Comments may be submitted to the TC by any person through the use of the OASIS TC Comment Facility which can be accessed via the button labeled "Send A Comment" at the top of the TC public home page, or directly at:

Feedback submitted by TC non-members for this work and for other work of this TC is publicly archived and can be viewed at:

All comments submitted to OASIS are subject to the OASIS Feedback License, which ensures that the feedback you provide carries the same obligations at least as the obligations of the TC members. In connection with this public review of 'Virtual I/O Device (VIRTIO) Version 1.0', we call your attention to the OASIS IPR Policy [3] applicable especially [4] to the work of this technical committee. All members of the TC should be familiar with this document, which may create obligations regarding the disclosure and availability of a member's patent, copyright, trademark and license rights that read on an approved OASIS specification. OASIS invites any persons who know of any such claims to disclose these if they may be essential to the implementation of the above specification, so that notice of them may be posted to the notice page for this TC's work.

========== Additional references:

[1] Virtual I/O Device (VIRTIO) TC

[2] Redlined DIFF file: 

[3] http://www.oasis-open.org/policies-guidelines/ipr

[4] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/virtio/ipr.php

Non-Assertion Mode