| VirtIO Devices |
| ============== |
| |
| VirtIO devices are paravirtualized devices designed to be efficient to |
| emulate and virtualize. Unless you are specifically trying to exercise |
| a driver for some particular hardware they are the recommended device |
| models to use for virtual machines. |
| |
| The `VirtIO specification`_ is an open standard managed by OASIS. It |
| describes how a *driver* in a guest operating system interacts with |
| the *device* model provided by QEMU. Multiple Operating Systems |
| support drivers for VirtIO with Linux perhaps having the widest range |
| of device types supported. |
| |
| The device implementation can either be provided wholly by QEMU, or in |
| concert with the kernel (known as *vhost*). The device implementation |
| can also be off-loaded to an external process via :ref:`vhost user |
| <vhost_user>`. |
| |
| .. toctree:: |
| :maxdepth: 1 |
| |
| virtio-gpu.rst |
| virtio-pmem.rst |
| virtio-snd.rst |
| vhost-user.rst |
| vhost-user-contrib.rst |
| |
| .. _VirtIO specification: https://docs.oasis-open.org/virtio/virtio/v1.3/virtio-v1.3.html |
