I think the docs should also - at least shortly - mention that:
1. The directory is only mounted temporarily and does not persist after
a restart.
2. The reasoning behind this decision.
3. How to mount permanently, if still desired (despite the reasoning
from point 2).
Other popular virtualization software also allow automatically mounting
such things, so I think it makes sense to at least explain how to do it,
even if we don't do it by default.
Some further comments inline
Otherwise, please consider:
Reviewed-by: Laurențiu Leahu-Vlăducu <l.leahu-vlad...@proxmox.com>
On 04.03.25 12:57, Markus Frank wrote:
Signed-off-by: Markus Frank <m.fr...@proxmox.com>
---
v14:
* addressed formulation nits
* added paragraph about expose-acl & expose-xattr
qm.adoc | 99 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
1 file changed, 97 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/qm.adoc b/qm.adoc
index 4bb8f2c..86b3877 100644
--- a/qm.adoc
+++ b/qm.adoc
@@ -1202,6 +1202,100 @@ recommended to always use a limiter to avoid guests
using too many host
resources. If desired, a value of '0' for `max_bytes` can be used to disable
all limits.
+[[qm_virtiofs]]
+Virtio-fs
+~~~~~~~~~
+
+Virtio-fs is a shared filesystem designed for virtual environments. It allows
to
+share a directory tree available on the host by mounting it within VMs. It does
+not use the network stack and aims to offer similar performance and semantics
as
+the source filesystem.
+
+To use virtio-fs, the https://gitlab.com/virtio-fs/virtiofsd[virtiofsd] daemon
+needs to run in the background. This happens automatically in {pve} when
+starting a VM using a virtio-fs mount.
+
+Linux VMs with kernel >=5.4 support virtio-fs by default.
+
+There is a guide available on how to utilize virtio-fs in Windows VMs.
+https://github.com/virtio-win/kvm-guest-drivers-windows/wiki/Virtiofs:-Shared-file-system
+
+Known Limitations
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+* If virtiofsd crashes, its mount point will hang in the VM until the VM
+is completely stopped.
+* virtiofsd not responding may result in a hanging mount in the VM, similar to
+an unreachable NFS.
+* Memory hotplug does not work in combination with virtio-fs (also results in
+hanging access).
+* Memory related features such as live migration, snapshots, and hibernate are
+not available with virtio-fs devices.
+* Windows cannot understand ACLs in the context of virtio-fs. Therefore, do not
+expose ACLs for Windows VMs, otherwise the virtio-fs device will not be
+visible within the VM.
+
+Add Mapping for Shared Directories
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+To add a mapping for a shared directory, you can use the API directly with
+`pvesh` as described in the xref:resource_mapping[Resource Mapping] section:
+
+----
+pvesh create /cluster/mapping/dir --id dir1 \
+ --map node=node1,path=/path/to/share1 \
+ --map node=node2,path=/path/to/share2,announce-submounts=1 \
+----
+
+Set `announce-submounts` to `1` if multiple filesystems are mounted in a shared
+directory. This tells the guest which directories are mount points to prevent
+data loss/corruption. With `announce-submounts`, virtiofsd reports a different
+device number for each submount it encounters. Without it, duplicates may be
+created because inode IDs are only unique on a single filesystem.
+
+Add virtio-fs to a VM
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+To share a directory using virtio-fs, add the parameter `virtiofs<N>` (N can be
+anything between 0 and 9) to the VM config and use a directory ID (dirid) that
+has been configured in the resource mapping. Additionally, you can set the
+`cache` option to either `always`, `never`, or `auto` (default: `auto`),
+depending on your requirements. How the different caching modes behave can be
+read at https://lwn.net/Articles/774495/ under the "Caching Modes" section. To
+enable writeback cache set `writeback` to `1`.
While I know that the linked article/patch contains a lot of
information, unless we have a very good reason, I think we should either
summarize that information in our own documentation, or we should create
a separate section in our documentation that explains the information
available there. The reason of that is that our documentation might be
accessed from offline (air-gapped) machines that won't be able to access
the internet.
+
+Virtiofsd supports ACL and xattr passthrough (can be enabled with the
+`expose-acl` and `expose-xattr` options), allowing the guest to access ACLs and
+xattrs if the underlying host filesystem supports them, but they must also be
+compatible with the guest filesystem (for example most Linux filesystems
support
+ACLs, while Windows filesystems do not).
+
+The `expose-acl` option automatically implies `expose-xattr`, that is, it makes
+no difference if you set `expose-xattr` to `0` if `expose-acl` is set to `1`.
+
+If you want virtio-fs to honor the `O_DIRECT` flag, you can set the `direct-io`
+parameter to `1` (default: `0`). This will degrade performance, but is useful
if
+applications do their own caching.
+
+----
+qm set <vmid> -virtiofs0 dirid=<dirid>,cache=always,direct-io=1
+qm set <vmid> -virtiofs1 <dirid>,cache=never,expose-xattr=1
+qm set <vmid> -virtiofs2 <dirid>,expose-acl=1,writeback=1
+----
+
+To mount virtio-fs in a guest VM with the Linux kernel virtio-fs driver, run
the
+following command inside the guest:
+
+----
+mount -t virtiofs <mount tag> <mount point>
+----
+
+The dirid associated with the path on the current node is also used as the
mount
+tag (name used to mount the device on the guest).
+
+For more information on available virtiofsd parameters, see the
+https://gitlab.com/virtio-fs/virtiofsd[GitLab virtiofsd project page].
+
[[qm_bootorder]]
Device Boot Order
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@@ -1885,8 +1979,9 @@ in the relevant tab in the `Resource Mappings` category,
or on the cli with
[thumbnail="screenshot/gui-datacenter-mapping-pci-edit.png"]
-Where `<type>` is the hardware type (currently either `pci` or `usb`) and
-`<options>` are the device mappings and other configuration parameters.
+Where `<type>` is the hardware type (currently either `pci`, `usb` or
+xref:qm_virtiofs[dir]) and `<options>` are the device mappings and other
+configuration parameters.
Note that the options must include a map property with all identifying
properties of that hardware, so that it's possible to verify the hardware did
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