[PATCH RFC 0/1] VFIO: Region-specific file descriptors

[Shawn Anastasio]

This patch adds region file descriptors to VFIO, a simple file descriptor type
that allows read/write/mmap operations on a single region of a VFIO device.

This feature is particularly useful for privileged applications that use VFIO
and wish to share file descriptors with unprivileged applications without
handing over full control of the device. It also allows applications to use
regular offsets in read/write/mmap instead of the region index + offset that
must be used with device file descriptors.

The current implementation is very raw (PCI only, no reference counting which
is probably wrong), but I wanted to get a sense to see if this feature is
desired. If it is, tips on how to implement this more correctly are
appreciated.

Comments welcome!


Shawn Anastasio (1):
  vfio/pci: Introduce region file descriptors

 drivers/vfio/pci/vfio_pci.c         | 105 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 drivers/vfio/pci/vfio_pci_private.h |   5 ++
 include/uapi/linux/vfio.h           |  14 ++++
 3 files changed, 124 insertions(+)

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2.20.1