=head1 NAME

xl.cfg - xl domain configuration file syntax

=head1 SYNOPSIS

 /etc/xen/xldomain

=head1 DESCRIPTION

Creating a VM (a domain in Xen terminology, sometimes called a guest)
with xl requires the provision of a domain configuration file.  Typically,
these live in F</etc/xen/DOMAIN.cfg>, where DOMAIN is the name of the
domain.

=head1 SYNTAX

A domain configuration file consists of a series of options, specified by
using C<KEY=VALUE> pairs.

Some C<KEY>s are mandatory, some are general options which apply to
any guest type, while others relate only to specific guest types
(e.g. PV or HVM guests).

A C<VALUE> can be one of:

=over 4

=item B<"STRING">

A string, surrounded by either single or double quotes. But if the
STRING is part of a SPEC_STRING, the quotes should be omitted.

=item B<NUMBER>

A number, in either decimal, octal (using a C<0> prefix) or
hexadecimal (using a C<0x> prefix) format.

=item B<BOOLEAN>

A C<NUMBER> interpreted as C<False> (C<0>) or C<True> (any other
value).

=item B<[ VALUE, VALUE, ... ]>

A list of C<VALUE>s of the above types. Lists can be heterogeneous and
nested.

=back

The semantics of each C<KEY> defines which type of C<VALUE> is required.

Pairs may be separated either by a newline or a semicolon.  Both
of the following are valid:

  name="h0"
  type="hvm"

  name="h0"; type="hvm"

=head1 OPTIONS

=head2 Mandatory Configuration Items

The following key is mandatory for any guest type.

=over 4

=item B<name="NAME">

Specifies the name of the domain.  Names of domains existing on a
single host must be unique.

=back

=head2 Selecting Guest Type

=over 4

=item B<type="pv">

Specifies that this is to be a PV domain, suitable for hosting Xen-aware
guest operating systems. This is the default on x86.

=item B<type="pvh">

Specifies that this is to be an PVH domain. That is a lightweight HVM-like
guest without a device model and without many of the emulated devices
available to HVM guests. Note that this mode requires a PVH aware kernel on
x86. This is the default on Arm.

=item B<type="hvm">

Specifies that this is to be an HVM domain. That is, a fully virtualised
computer with emulated BIOS, disk and network peripherals, etc.

=back

=head3 Deprecated guest type selection

Note that the builder option is being deprecated in favor of the type
option.

=over 4

=item B<builder="generic">

Specifies that this is to be a PV domain, suitable for hosting Xen-aware guest
operating systems. This is the default.

=item B<builder="hvm">

Specifies that this is to be an HVM domain.  That is, a fully
virtualised computer with emulated BIOS, disk and network peripherals,
etc.

=back

=head2 General Options

The following options apply to guests of any type.

=head3 CPU Allocation

=over 4

=item B<pool="CPUPOOLNAME">

Put the guest's vCPUs into the named CPU pool.

=item B<vcpus=N>

Start the guest with N vCPUs initially online.

=item B<maxvcpus=M>

Allow the guest to bring up a maximum of M vCPUs. When starting the guest, if
B<vcpus=N> is less than B<maxvcpus=M> then the first B<N> vCPUs will be
created online and the remainder will be created offline.

=item B<cpus="CPULIST">

List of host CPUs the guest is allowed to use. Default is no pinning at
all (more on this below). A C<CPULIST> may be specified as follows:

=over 4

=item "all"

To allow all the vCPUs of the guest to run on all the CPUs on the host.

=item "0-3,5,^1"

To allow all the vCPUs of the guest to run on CPUs 0,2,3,5. It is possible to
combine this with "all", meaning "all,^7" results in all the vCPUs
of the guest being allowed to run on all the CPUs of the host except CPU 7.

=item "nodes:0-3,^node:2"

To allow all the vCPUs of the guest to run on the CPUs from NUMA nodes
0,1,3 of the host. So, if CPUs 0-3 belong to node 0, CPUs 4-7 belong
to node 1, CPUs 8-11 to node 2 and CPUs 12-15 to node 3, the above would mean
all the vCPUs of the guest would be allowed to run on CPUs 0-7,12-15.

Combining this notation with the one above is possible. For instance,
"1,node:1,^6", means all the vCPUs of the guest will run on CPU 1 and
on all the CPUs of NUMA node 1, but not on CPU 6. Following the same
example as above, that would be CPUs 1,4,5,7.

Combining this with "all" is also possible, meaning "all,^node:1"
results in all the vCPUs of the guest running on all the CPUs on the
host, except for the CPUs belonging to the host NUMA node 1.

=item ["2", "3-8,^5"]

To ask for specific vCPU mapping. That means (in this example), vCPU 0
of the guest will run on CPU 2 of the host and vCPU 1 of the guest will
run on CPUs 3,4,6,7,8 of the host (excluding CPU 5).

More complex notation can be also used, exactly as described above. So
"all,^5-8", or just "all", or "node:0,node:2,^9-11,18-20" are all legal,
for each element of the list.

=back

If this option is not specified, no vCPU to CPU pinning is established,
and the vCPUs of the guest can run on all the CPUs of the host. If this
option is specified, the intersection of the vCPU pinning mask, provided
here, and the soft affinity mask, if provided via B<cpus_soft=>,
is utilized to compute the domain node-affinity for driving memory
allocations.

=item B<cpus_soft="CPULIST">

Exactly as B<cpus=>, but specifies soft affinity, rather than pinning
(hard affinity). When using the credit scheduler, this means what CPUs
the vCPUs of the domain prefer.

A C<CPULIST> is specified exactly as for B<cpus=>, detailed earlier in the
manual.

If this option is not specified, the vCPUs of the guest will not have
any preference regarding host CPUs. If this option is specified,
the intersection of the soft affinity mask, provided here, and the vCPU
pinning, if provided via B<cpus=>, is utilized to compute the
domain node-affinity for driving memory allocations.

If this option is not specified (and B<cpus=> is not specified either),
libxl automatically tries to place the guest on the least possible
number of nodes. A heuristic approach is used for choosing the best
node (or set of nodes), with the goal of maximizing performance for
the guest and, at the same time, achieving efficient utilization of
host CPUs and memory. In that case, the soft affinity of all the vCPUs
of the domain will be set to host CPUs belonging to NUMA nodes
chosen during placement.

For more details, see L<xl-numa-placement(7)>.

=back

=head3 CPU Scheduling

=over 4

=item B<cpu_weight=WEIGHT>

A domain with a weight of 512 will get twice as much CPU as a domain
with a weight of 256 on a contended host.
Legal weights range from 1 to 65535 and the default is 256.
Honoured by the credit and credit2 schedulers.

=item B<cap=N>

The cap optionally fixes the maximum amount of CPU a domain will be
able to consume, even if the host system has idle CPU cycles.
The cap is expressed as a percentage of one physical CPU:
100 is 1 physical CPU, 50 is half a CPU, 400 is 4 CPUs, etc.
The default, 0, means there is no cap.
Honoured by the credit and credit2 schedulers.

B<NOTE>: Many systems have features that will scale down the computing
power of a CPU that is not 100% utilized.  This can be done in the
operating system, but can also sometimes be done below the operating system,
in the BIOS.  If you set a cap such that individual cores are running
at less than 100%, this may have an impact on the performance of your
workload over and above the impact of the cap. For example, if your
processor runs at 2GHz, and you cap a VM at 50%, the power management
system may also reduce the clock speed to 1GHz; the effect will be
that your VM gets 25% of the available power (50% of 1GHz) rather than
50% (50% of 2GHz).  If you are not getting the performance you expect,
look at performance and CPU frequency options in your operating system and
your BIOS.

=back

=head3 Memory Allocation

=over 4

=item B<memory=MBYTES>

Start the guest with MBYTES megabytes of RAM.

=item B<maxmem=MBYTES>

Specifies the maximum amount of memory a guest can ever see.
The value of B<maxmem=> must be equal to or greater than that of B<memory=>.

In combination with B<memory=> it will start the guest "pre-ballooned",
if the values of B<memory=> and B<maxmem=> differ.
A "pre-ballooned" HVM guest needs a balloon driver, without a balloon driver
it will crash.

B<NOTE>: Because of the way ballooning works, the guest has to allocate
memory to keep track of maxmem pages, regardless of how much memory it
actually has available to it.  A guest with maxmem=262144 and
memory=8096 will report significantly less memory available for use
than a system with maxmem=8096 memory=8096 due to the memory overhead
of having to track the unused pages.

=back

=head3 Guest Virtual NUMA Configuration

=over 4

=item B<vnuma=[ VNODE_SPEC, VNODE_SPEC, ... ]>

Specify virtual NUMA configuration with positional arguments. The
nth B<VNODE_SPEC> in the list specifies the configuration of the nth
virtual node.

Note that virtual NUMA is not supported for PV guests yet, because
there is an issue with the CPUID instruction handling that affects PV virtual
NUMA. Furthermore, guests with virtual NUMA cannot be saved or migrated
because the migration stream does not preserve node information.

Each B<VNODE_SPEC> is a list, which has a form of
"[VNODE_CONFIG_OPTION, VNODE_CONFIG_OPTION, ... ]"  (without the quotes).

For example, vnuma = [ ["pnode=0","size=512","vcpus=0-4","vdistances=10,20"] ]
means vnode 0 is mapped to pnode 0, has 512MB ram, has vcpus 0 to 4, the
distance to itself is 10 and the distance to vnode 1 is 20.

Each B<VNODE_CONFIG_OPTION> is a quoted C<KEY=VALUE> pair. Supported
B<VNODE_CONFIG_OPTION>s are (they are all mandatory at the moment):

=over 4

=item B<pnode=NUMBER>

Specifies which physical node this virtual node maps to.

=item B<size=MBYTES>

Specifies the size of this virtual node. The sum of memory sizes of all
vnodes will become B<maxmem=>. If B<maxmem=> is specified separately,
a check is performed to make sure the sum of all vnode memory matches
B<maxmem=>.

=item B<vcpus="CPUSTRING">

Specifies which vCPUs belong to this node. B<"CPUSTRING"> is a string of numerical
values separated by a comma. You can specify a range and/or a single CPU.
An example would be "vcpus=0-5,8", which means you specified vCPU 0 to vCPU 5,
and vCPU 8.

=item B<vdistances=NUMBER, NUMBER, ... >

Specifies the virtual distance from this node to all nodes (including
itself) with positional arguments. For example, "vdistance=10,20"
for vnode 0 means the distance from vnode 0 to vnode 0 is 10, from
vnode 0 to vnode 1 is 20. The number of arguments supplied must match
the total number of vnodes.

Normally you can use the values from B<xl info -n> or B<numactl
--hardware> to fill the vdistances list.

=back

=back

=head3 Event Actions

=over 4

=item B<on_poweroff="ACTION">

Specifies what should be done with the domain if it shuts itself down.
The B<ACTION>s are:

=over 4

=item B<destroy>

destroy the domain

=item B<restart>

destroy the domain and immediately create a new domain with the same
configuration

=item B<rename-restart>

rename the domain which terminated, and then immediately create a new
domain with the same configuration as the original

=item B<preserve>

keep the domain.  It can be examined, and later destroyed with B<xl destroy>.

=item B<coredump-destroy>

write a "coredump" of the domain to F<@XEN_DUMP_DIR@/NAME> and then
destroy the domain.

=item B<coredump-restart>

write a "coredump" of the domain to F<@XEN_DUMP_DIR@/NAME> and then
restart the domain.

=item B<soft-reset>

Reset all Xen specific interfaces for the Xen-aware HVM domain allowing
it to reestablish these interfaces and continue executing the domain. PV
and non-Xen-aware HVM guests are not supported.

=back

The default for B<on_poweroff> is B<destroy>.

=item B<on_reboot="ACTION">

Action to take if the domain shuts down with a reason code requesting
a reboot.  Default is B<restart>.

=item B<on_watchdog="ACTION">

Action to take if the domain shuts down due to a Xen watchdog timeout.
Default is B<destroy>.

=item B<on_crash="ACTION">

Action to take if the domain crashes.  Default is B<destroy>.

=item B<on_soft_reset="ACTION">

Action to take if the domain performs a 'soft reset' (e.g. does B<kexec>).
Default is B<soft-reset>.

=back

=head3 Direct Kernel Boot

Direct kernel boot allows booting guests with a kernel and an initrd
stored on a filesystem available to the host physical machine, allowing
command line arguments to be passed directly. PV guest direct kernel boot is
supported. HVM guest direct kernel boot is supported with some limitations
(it's supported when using B<qemu-xen> and the default BIOS 'seabios',
but not supported in case of using B<stubdom-dm> and the old 'rombios'.)

=over 4

=item B<kernel="PATHNAME">

Load the specified file as the kernel image.

=item B<ramdisk="PATHNAME">

Load the specified file as the ramdisk.

=item B<cmdline="STRING">

Append B<STRING> to the kernel command line. (Note: the meaning of
this is guest specific). It can replace B<root="STRING">
along with B<extra="STRING"> and is preferred. When B<cmdline="STRING"> is set,
B<root="STRING"> and B<extra="STRING"> will be ignored.

=item B<root="STRING">

Append B<root=STRING> to the kernel command line (Note: the meaning of this
is guest specific).

=item B<extra="STRING">

Append B<STRING> to the kernel command line. (Note: the meaning of this
is guest specific).

=back

=head3 Non direct Kernel Boot

Non direct kernel boot allows booting guests with a firmware. This can be
used by all types of guests, although the selection of options is different
depending on the guest type.

This option provides the flexibly of letting the guest decide which kernel
they want to boot, while preventing having to poke at the guest file
system form the toolstack domain.

=head4 PV guest options

=over 4

=item B<firmware="pvgrub32|pvgrub64">

Boots a guest using a para-virtualized version of grub that runs inside
of the guest. The bitness of the guest needs to be know, so that the right
version of pvgrub can be selected.

Note that xl expects to find the pvgrub32.bin and pvgrub64.bin binaries in
F<@XENFIRMWAREDIR@>.

=back

=head4 HVM guest options

=over 4

=item B<firmware="bios">

Boot the guest using the default BIOS firmware, which depends on the
chosen device model.

=item B<firmware="uefi">

Boot the guest using the default UEFI firmware, currently OVMF.

=item B<firmware="seabios">

Boot the guest using the SeaBIOS BIOS firmware.

=item B<firmware="rombios">

Boot the guest using the ROMBIOS BIOS firmware.

=item B<firmware="ovmf">

Boot the guest using the OVMF UEFI firmware.

=item B<firmware="PATH">

Load the specified file as firmware for the guest.

=back

=head4 PVH guest options

Currently there's no firmware available for PVH guests, they should be
booted using the B<Direct Kernel Boot> method or the B<bootloader> option.

=over 4

=item B<pvshim=BOOLEAN>

Whether to boot this guest as a PV guest within a PVH container.
Ie, the guest will experience a PV environment,
but
processor hardware extensions are used to
separate its address space
to mitigate the Meltdown attack (CVE-2017-5754).

Default is false.

=item B<pvshim_path="PATH">

The PV shim is a specially-built firmware-like executable
constructed from the hypervisor source tree.
This option specifies to use a non-default shim.
Ignored if pvhsim is false.

=item B<pvshim_cmdline="STRING">

Command line for the shim.
Default is "pv-shim console=xen,pv".
Ignored if pvhsim is false.

=item B<pvshim_extra="STRING">

Extra command line arguments for the shim.
If supplied, appended to the value for pvshim_cmdline.
Default is empty.
Ignored if pvhsim is false.

=back

=head3 Other Options

=over 4

=item B<uuid="UUID">

Specifies the UUID of the domain.  If not specified, a fresh unique
UUID will be generated.

=item B<seclabel="LABEL">

Assign an XSM security label to this domain.

=item B<init_seclabel="LABEL">

Specify an XSM security label used for this domain temporarily during
its build. The domain's XSM label will be changed to the execution
seclabel (specified by B<seclabel>) once the build is complete, prior to
unpausing the domain. With a properly constructed security policy (such
as nomigrate_t in the example policy), this can be used to build a
domain whose memory is not accessible to the toolstack domain.

=item B<max_grant_frames=NUMBER>

Specify the maximum number of grant frames the domain is allowed to have.
This value controls how many pages the domain is able to grant access to for
other domains, needed e.g. for the operation of paravirtualized devices.
The default is settable via L<xl.conf(5)>.

=item B<max_maptrack_frames=NUMBER>

Specify the maximum number of grant maptrack frames the domain is allowed
to have. This value controls how many pages of foreign domains can be accessed
via the grant mechanism by this domain. The default value is settable via
L<xl.conf(5)>.

=item B<max_grant_version=NUMBER>

Specify the maximum grant table version the domain is allowed to use. The
default value is settable via L<xl.conf(5)>.

=item B<nomigrate=BOOLEAN>

Disable migration of this domain.  This enables certain other features
which are incompatible with migration. Currently this is limited to
enabling the invariant TSC feature flag in CPUID results when TSC is
not emulated.

=item B<driver_domain=BOOLEAN>

Specify that this domain is a driver domain. This enables certain
features needed in order to run a driver domain.

=item B<device_tree=PATH>

Specify a partial device tree (compiled via the Device Tree Compiler).
Everything under the node "/passthrough" will be copied into the guest
device tree. For convenience, the node "/aliases" is also copied to allow
the user to define aliases which can be used by the guest kernel.

Given the complexity of verifying the validity of a device tree, this
option should only be used with a trusted device tree.

Note that the partial device tree should avoid using the phandle 65000
which is reserved by the toolstack.

=item B<passthrough="STRING">

Specify whether IOMMU mappings are enabled for the domain and hence whether
it will be enabled for passthrough hardware. Valid values for this option
are:

=over 4

=item B<disabled>

IOMMU mappings are disabled for the domain and so hardware may not be
passed through.

This option is the default if no passthrough hardware is specified in the
domain's configuration.

=item B<enabled>

This option enables IOMMU mappings and selects an appropriate default
operating mode (see below for details of the operating modes). For HVM/PVH
domains running on platforms where the option is available, this is
equivalent to B<share_pt>. Otherwise, and also for PV domains, this
option is equivalent to B<sync_pt>.

This option is the default if passthrough hardware is specified in the
domain's configuration.

=item B<sync_pt>

This option means that IOMMU mappings will be synchronized with the
domain's P2M table as follows:

For a PV domain, all writable pages assigned to the domain are identity
mapped by MFN in the IOMMU page table. Thus a device driver running in the
domain may program passthrough hardware for DMA using MFN values
(i.e. host/machine frame numbers) looked up in its P2M.

For an HVM/PVH domain, all non-foreign RAM pages present in its P2M will be
mapped by GFN in the IOMMU page table. Thus a device driver running in the
domain may program passthrough hardware using GFN values (i.e. guest
physical frame numbers) without any further translation.

This option is not currently available on Arm.

=item B<share_pt>

This option is unavailable for a PV domain. For an HVM/PVH domain, this
option means that the IOMMU will be programmed to directly reference the
domain's P2M table as its page table. From the point of view of a device
driver running in the domain this is functionally equivalent to B<sync_pt>
but places less load on the hypervisor and so should generally be selected
in preference. However, the availability of this option is hardware
specific. If B<xl info> reports B<virt_caps> containing
B<iommu_hap_pt_share> then this option may be used.

=item B<default>

The default, which chooses between B<disabled> and B<enabled>
according to whether passthrough devices are enabled in the config
file.

=back

=item B<xend_suspend_evtchn_compat=BOOLEAN>

If this option is B<true> the xenstore path for the domain's suspend
event channel will not be created. Instead the old xend behaviour of
making the whole xenstore B<device> sub-tree writable by the domain will
be re-instated.

The existence of the suspend event channel path can cause problems with
certain PV drivers running in the guest (e.g. old Red Hat PV drivers for
Windows).

If this option is not specified then it will default to B<false>.

=item B<vmtrace_buf_kb=KBYTES>

Specifies the size of vmtrace buffer that would be allocated for each
vCPU belonging to this domain.  Disabled (i.e.  B<vmtrace_buf_kb=0>) by
default.

B<NOTE>: Acceptable values are platform specific.  For Intel Processor
Trace, this value must be a power of 2 between 4k and 16M.

=item B<vpmu=BOOLEAN>

Currently ARM only.

Specifies whether to enable the access to PMU registers by disabling
the PMU traps.

The PMU registers are not virtualized and the physical registers are directly
accessible when this parameter is enabled. There is no interrupt support and
Xen will not save/restore the register values on context switches.

vPMU, by design and purpose, exposes system level performance
information to the guest. Only to be used by sufficiently privileged
domains. This feature is currently in experimental state.

If this option is not specified then it will default to B<false>.

=back

=head3 Xenstore related settings

=over 4

=item B<xenstore_feature_mask=NUMBER>

Specify which Xenstore features are visible for the guest.

This might be needed when a guest should be able to be migrated to a host
running a Xenstore implementation with less features than the one the guest
is created on.

The visible features are specified via a binary or of the following
values:

=over 4

=item B<0x00000001>

Xenstore is capable to reconnect to a guest.

=item B<0x00000002>

Xenstore will present an error value in case it disconnects due to an error
condition.

=item B<0x00000004>

Xenstore supports to set watches with a limited depth (depth 0 matches
only the watched node, depth 1 matches the node and its direct children,
etc.).

=item B<0x00000008>

Xenstore supports the B<all domains> node access permission.

=back

The features supported by the running Xenstore instance can be retrieved
via the B<xl info -x> command in dom0.

The default value is B<0xffffffff>, meaning that all possible Xenstore
features are visible by the guest.

=item B<xenstore_quota=[ QUOTA_SPEC, QUOTA_SPEC, ...]>

Specifies Xenstore quota values of the domain, overriding the default
values of Xenstore.

Each B<QUOTA_SPEC> is a B<quota-name>=B<value> specification. The supported
B<quota-name> identifiers can be obtained by the B<xl xenstore-quota-get -g>
command. B<value> is a non-negative integer.

As per-domain Xenstore quota are an optional Xenstore feature, the
B<xenstore_quota> config parameter may not be supported by all Xenstore
implementations.

=back

=head2 Devices

The following options define the paravirtual, emulated and physical
devices which the guest will contain.

=over 4

=item B<disk=[ "DISK_SPEC_STRING", "DISK_SPEC_STRING", ...]>

Specifies the disks (both emulated disks and Xen virtual block
devices) which are to be provided to the guest, and what objects on
the host they should map to.  See L<xl-disk-configuration(5)> for more
details.

=item B<vif=[ "NET_SPEC_STRING", "NET_SPEC_STRING", ...]>

Specifies the network interfaces (both emulated network adapters,
and Xen virtual interfaces) which are to be provided to the guest.  See
L<xl-network-configuration(5)> for more details.

=item B<vtpm=[ "VTPM_SPEC_STRING", "VTPM_SPEC_STRING", ...]>

Specifies the Virtual Trusted Platform module to be
provided to the guest. See L<xen-vtpm(7)> for more details.

Each B<VTPM_SPEC_STRING> is a comma-separated list of C<KEY=VALUE>
settings from the following list:

=over 4

=item B<backend=domain-id>

Specifies the backend domain name or id. B<This value is required!>
If this domain is a guest, the backend should be set to the
vTPM domain name. If this domain is a vTPM, the
backend should be set to the vTPM manager domain name.

=item B<uuid=UUID>

Specifies the UUID of this vTPM device. The UUID is used to uniquely
identify the vTPM device. You can create one using the B<uuidgen(1)>
program on unix systems. If left unspecified, a new UUID
will be randomly generated every time the domain boots.
If this is a vTPM domain, you should specify a value. The
value is optional if this is a guest domain.

=back

=item B<p9=[ "9PFS_SPEC_STRING", "9PFS_SPEC_STRING", ...]>

Creates a Xen 9pfs connection to share a filesystem from the backend to the
frontend.

Each B<9PFS_SPEC_STRING> is a comma-separated list of C<KEY=VALUE>
settings, from the following list:

=over 4

=item B<type=TYPE>

The backendtype for the PV device. Supported values are B<qemu> and
B<xen_9pfsd>.  The default is B<qemu>.

=item B<tag=STRING>

9pfs tag to identify the filesystem share. The tag is needed on the
guest side to mount it. For the backendtype of B<xen_9pfsd> the tag defaults to
"Xen".

=item B<security_model="none">

Only "none" is supported today, which means that the files are stored using
the same credentials as those they have in the guest (no user ownership
squash or remap).

=item B<path=STRING>

Filesystem path on the backend to export. For the backendtype of B<xen_9pfsd>
the path defaults to "@XEN_LOG_DIR@/guests/<guest-name>".

=item B<backend=domain-id>

Specify the backend domain name or id, defaults to dom0.

=item B<max-files=NUMBER>

Specify the maximum number of files below B<path>. A value of 0 (which
is the default) doesn't limit the number of files. Only valid for
B<type=xen_9pfsd>.

=item B<max-open-files=NUMBER>

Specify the maximum number of concurrently opened files below B<path>.
Multiple opens of the same file are counted individually. Only valid for
B<type=xen_9pfsd>, which has a default of B<max-open-files=5>.

=item B<max-space=NUMBER>

Specify the maximum used disk space in MiB below B<path>. A value of 0 (which
is the default) doesn't limit the usable disk space. Only valid for
B<type=xen_9pfsd>.

=item B<auto-delete=BOOLEAN>

When set the backend will delete the oldest file which is currently not
opened by the guest in case the disk space limit set via B<max-space> or the
file limit set via B<max-files> is being reached. Only valid for
B<type=xen_9pfsd>.

=back

=item B<pvcalls=[ "backend=domain-id", ... ]>

Creates a Xen pvcalls connection to handle pvcalls requests from
frontend to backend. It can be used as an alternative networking model.
For more information about the protocol, see
https://xenbits.xenproject.org/docs/unstable/misc/pvcalls.html.

=item B<vfb=[ "VFB_SPEC_STRING", "VFB_SPEC_STRING", ...]>

Specifies the paravirtual framebuffer devices which should be supplied
to the domain.

This option does not control the emulated graphics card presented to
an HVM guest. See B<Emulated VGA Graphics Device> below for how to
configure the emulated device. If B<Emulated VGA Graphics Device> options
are used in a PV guest configuration, B<xl> will pick up B<vnc>, B<vnclisten>,
B<vncpasswd>, B<vncdisplay>, B<vncunused>, B<sdl> and
B<keymap> to construct the paravirtual framebuffer device for the guest.

Each B<VFB_SPEC_STRING> is a comma-separated list of C<KEY=VALUE>
settings, from the following list:

=over 4

=item B<vnc=BOOLEAN>

Allow access to the display via the VNC protocol.  This enables the
other VNC-related settings.  Default is 1 (enabled).

=item B<vnclisten=ADDRESS[:DISPLAYNUM]>

Specifies the IP address, and optionally the VNC display number, to use.

Note: if you specify the display number here, you should not use
the B<vncdisplay> option.

=item B<vncdisplay=DISPLAYNUM>

Specifies the VNC display number to use.  The actual TCP port number
will be DISPLAYNUM+5900.

Note: you should not use this option if you set the DISPLAYNUM in the
B<vnclisten> option.

=item B<vncunused=BOOLEAN>

Requests that the VNC display setup searches for a free TCP port to use.
The actual display used can be accessed with B<xl vncviewer>.

=item B<vncpasswd=PASSWORD>

Specifies the password for the VNC server. If the password is set to an
empty string, authentication on the VNC server will be disabled,
allowing any user to connect.

=item B<sdl=BOOLEAN>

Specifies that the display should be presented via an X window (using
Simple DirectMedia Layer). The default is 0 (not enabled).

=item B<display=DISPLAY>

Specifies the X Window display that should be used when the B<sdl> option
is used.

=item B<xauthority=XAUTHORITY>

Specifies the path to the X authority file that should be used to
connect to the X server when the B<sdl> option is used.

=item B<keymap=LANG>

Configure the keymap to use for the keyboard associated with this
display. If the input method does not easily support raw keycodes
(e.g. this is often the case when using VNC) then this allows us to
correctly map the input keys into keycodes seen by the guest. The
specific values which are accepted are defined by the version of the
device-model which you are using. See B<Keymaps> below or consult the
B<qemu(1)> manpage. The default is B<en-us>.

=back

=item B<channel=[ "CHANNEL_SPEC_STRING", "CHANNEL_SPEC_STRING", ...]>

Specifies the virtual channels to be provided to the guest. A
channel is a low-bandwidth, bidirectional byte stream, which resembles
a serial link. Typical uses for channels include transmitting VM
configuration after boot and signalling to in-guest agents. Please see
L<xen-pv-channel(7)> for more details.

Each B<CHANNEL_SPEC_STRING> is a comma-separated list of C<KEY=VALUE>
settings. Leading and trailing whitespace is ignored in both KEY and
VALUE. Neither KEY nor VALUE may contain ',', '=' or '"'. Defined values
are:

=over 4

=item B<backend=domain-id>

Specifies the backend domain name or id. This parameter is optional. If
this parameter is omitted then the toolstack domain will be assumed.

=item B<name=NAME>

Specifies the name for this device. B<This parameter is mandatory!>
This should be a well-known name for a specific application (e.g.
guest agent) and should be used by the frontend to connect the
application to the right channel device. There is no formal registry
of channel names, so application authors are encouraged to make their
names unique by including the domain name and a version number in the string
(e.g. org.mydomain.guestagent.1).

=item B<connection=CONNECTION>

Specifies how the backend will be implemented. The following options are
available:

=over 4

=item B<SOCKET>

The backend will bind a Unix domain socket (at the path given by
B<path=PATH>), listen for and accept connections. The backend will proxy
data between the channel and the connected socket.

=item B<PTY>

The backend will create a pty and proxy data between the channel and the
master device. The command B<xl channel-list> can be used to discover the
assigned slave device.

=back

=back

=item B<rdm="RDM_RESERVATION_STRING">

B<HVM/x86 only!> Specifies information about Reserved Device Memory (RDM),
which is necessary to enable robust device passthrough. One example of RDM
is reporting through the ACPI Reserved Memory Region Reporting (RMRR) structure
on the x86 platform.

B<RDM_RESERVATION_STRING> is a comma separated list of C<KEY=VALUE> settings,
from the following list:

=over 4

=item B<strategy=STRING>

Currently there is only one valid type, and that is "host".

=over 4

=item B<host>

If set to "host" it means all reserved device memory on this platform should
be checked to reserve regions in this VM's address space. This global RDM
parameter allows the user to specify reserved regions explicitly, and using
"host" includes all reserved regions reported on this platform, which is
useful when doing hotplug.

By default this isn't set so we don't check all RDMs. Instead, we just check
the RDM specific to a given device if we're assigning this kind of a device.

Note: this option is not recommended unless you can make sure that no
conflicts exist.

For example, you're trying to set "memory = 2800" to allocate memory to one
given VM but the platform owns two RDM regions like:

Device A [sbdf_A]: RMRR region_A: base_addr ac6d3000 end_address ac6e6fff

Device B [sbdf_B]: RMRR region_B: base_addr ad800000 end_address afffffff

In this conflict case,

#1. If B<strategy> is set to "host", for example:

rdm = "strategy=host,policy=strict" or rdm = "strategy=host,policy=relaxed"

it means all conflicts will be handled according to the policy
introduced by B<policy> as described below.

#2. If B<strategy> is not set at all, but

pci = [ 'sbdf_A, rdm_policy=xxxxx' ]

it means only one conflict of region_A will be handled according to the policy
introduced by B<rdm_policy=STRING> as described inside B<pci> options.

=back

=item B<policy=STRING>

Specifies how to deal with conflicts when reserving already reserved device
memory in the guest address space.

=over 4

=item B<strict>

Specifies that in case of an unresolved conflict the VM can't be created,
or the associated device can't be attached in the case of hotplug.

=item B<relaxed>

Specifies that in case of an unresolved conflict the VM is allowed to be
created but may cause the VM to crash if a pass-through device accesses RDM.
For example, the Windows IGD GFX driver always accesses RDM regions so it
leads to a VM crash.

Note: this may be overridden by the B<rdm_policy> option in the B<pci>
device configuration.

=back

=back

=item B<usbctrl=[ "USBCTRL_SPEC_STRING", "USBCTRL_SPEC_STRING", ...]>

Specifies the USB controllers created for this guest.

Each B<USBCTRL_SPEC_STRING> is a comma-separated list of C<KEY=VALUE>
settings, from the following list:

=over 4

=item B<type=TYPE>

Specifies the usb controller type.

=over 4

=item B<pv>

Specifies a kernel based PVUSB backend.

=item B<qusb>

Specifies a QEMU based PVUSB backend.

=item B<devicemodel>

Specifies a USB controller emulated by QEMU.
It will show up as a PCI-device in the guest.

=item B<auto>

Determines whether a kernel based backend is installed.
If this is the case, B<pv> is used, otherwise B<qusb> will be used.
For HVM domains B<devicemodel> will be selected.

This option is the default.

=back

=item B<version=VERSION>

Specifies the usb controller version.  Possible values include
1 (USB1.1), 2 (USB2.0) and 3 (USB3.0).
Default is 2 (USB2.0).
Value 3 (USB3.0) is available for the B<devicemodel> type only.

=item B<ports=PORTS>

Specifies the total number of ports of the usb controller. The maximum
number is 31. The default is 8.
With the type B<devicemodel> the number of ports is more limited:
a USB1.1 controller always has 2 ports,
a USB2.0 controller always has 6 ports
and a USB3.0 controller can have up to 15 ports.

USB controller ids start from 0.  In line with the USB specification, however,
ports on a controller start from 1.

B<EXAMPLE>

=over 2

usbctrl=["version=1,ports=4", "version=2,ports=8"]

The first controller is USB1.1 and has:

controller id = 0, and ports 1,2,3,4.

The second controller is USB2.0 and has:

controller id = 1, and ports 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8.

=back

=back

=item B<usbdev=[ "USBDEV_SPEC_STRING", "USBDEV_SPEC_STRING", ...]>

Specifies the USB devices to be attached to the guest at boot.

Each B<USBDEV_SPEC_STRING> is a comma-separated list of C<KEY=VALUE>
settings, from the following list:

=over 4

=item B<type=hostdev>

Specifies USB device type. Currently only "hostdev" is supported.

=item B<hostbus=busnum>

Specifies busnum of the USB device from the host perspective.

=item B<hostaddr=devnum>

Specifies devnum of the USB device from the host perspective.

=item B<controller=CONTROLLER>

Specifies the USB controller id, to which controller the USB device is
attached.

If no controller is specified, an available controller:port combination
will be used.  If there are no available controller:port combinations,
a new controller will be created.

=item B<port=PORT>

Specifies the USB port to which the USB device is attached. The B<port>
option is valid only when the B<controller> option is specified.

=back

=item B<pci=[ "PCI_SPEC_STRING", "PCI_SPEC_STRING", ...]>

Specifies the host PCI devices to passthrough to this guest.
See L<xl-pci-configuration(5)> for more details.

=item B<pci_permissive=BOOLEAN>

Changes the default value of B<permissive> for all PCI devices passed
through to this VM. See B<permissive> above.

=item B<pci_msitranslate=BOOLEAN>

Changes the default value of B<msitranslate> for all PCI devices passed
through to this VM. See B<msitranslate> above.

=item B<pci_seize=BOOLEAN>

Changes the default value of B<seize> for all PCI devices passed
through to this VM. See B<seize> above.

=item B<pci_power_mgmt=BOOLEAN>

B<(HVM only)> Changes the default value of B<power_mgmt> for all PCI
devices passed through to this VM. See B<power_mgmt>
above.

=item B<gfx_passthru=BOOLEAN|"STRING">

Enable graphics device PCI passthrough. This option makes an assigned
PCI graphics card become the primary graphics card in the VM. The QEMU
emulated graphics adapter is disabled and the VNC console for the VM
will not have any graphics output. All graphics output, including boot
time QEMU BIOS messages from the VM, will go to the physical outputs
of the passed through physical graphics card.

The graphics card PCI device to pass through is chosen with the B<pci>
option, in exactly the same way a normal Xen PCI device
passthrough/assignment is done.  Note that B<gfx_passthru> does not do
any kind of sharing of the GPU, so you can assign the GPU to only one
single VM at a time.

B<gfx_passthru> also enables various legacy VGA memory ranges, BARs, MMIOs,
and ioports to be passed through to the VM, since those are required
for correct operation of things like VGA BIOS, text mode, VBE, etc.

Enabling the B<gfx_passthru> option also copies the physical graphics card
video BIOS to the guest memory, and executes the VBIOS in the guest
to initialize the graphics card.

Most graphics adapters require vendor specific tweaks for properly
working graphics passthrough. See the XenVGAPassthroughTestedAdapters
L<https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/XenVGAPassthroughTestedAdapters> wiki page
for graphics cards currently supported by B<gfx_passthru>.

When given as a boolean the B<gfx_passthru> option either disables graphics
card passthrough or enables autodetection.

When given as a string the B<gfx_passthru> option describes the type
of device to enable.

Currently, valid values for the option are:

=over 4

=item B<0>

Disables graphics device PCI passthrough.

=item B<1>, B<"default">

Enables graphics device PCI passthrough and autodetects the type of device
which is being used.

=item B<"igd">

Enables graphics device PCI passthrough but forcing the type of device to
Intel Graphics Device.

=back

Note that some graphics cards (AMD/ATI cards, for example) do not
necessarily require the B<gfx_passthru> option, so you can use the normal Xen
PCI passthrough to assign the graphics card as a secondary graphics
card to the VM. The QEMU-emulated graphics card remains the primary
graphics card, and VNC output is available from the QEMU-emulated
primary adapter.

More information about the Xen B<gfx_passthru> feature is available
on the XenVGAPassthrough L<https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/XenVGAPassthrough>
wiki page.

=item B<rdm_mem_boundary=MBYTES>

Number of megabytes to set for a boundary when checking for RDM conflicts.

When RDM conflicts with RAM, RDM is probably scattered over the whole RAM
space. Having multiple RDM entries would worsen this and lead to a complicated
memory layout. Here we're trying to figure out a simple solution to
avoid breaking the existing layout. When a conflict occurs,

    #1. Above a predefined boundary
        - move lowmem_end below the reserved region to solve the conflict;

    #2. Below a predefined boundary
        - Check if the policy is strict or relaxed.
        A "strict" policy leads to a fail in libxl.
        Note that when both policies are specified on a given region,
        "strict" is always preferred.
        The "relaxed" policy issues a warning message and also masks this
        entry INVALID to indicate we shouldn't expose this entry to
        hvmloader.

The default value is 2048.

=item B<dtdev=[ "DTDEV_PATH", "DTDEV_PATH", ...]>

Specifies the host device tree nodes to passt hrough to this guest. Each
DTDEV_PATH is an absolute path in the device tree.

=item B<ioports=[ "IOPORT_RANGE", "IOPORT_RANGE", ...]>

Allow the guest to access specific legacy I/O ports. Each B<IOPORT_RANGE>
is given in hexadecimal format and may either be a range, e.g. C<2f8-2ff>
(inclusive), or a single I/O port, e.g. C<2f8>.

It is recommended to only use this option for trusted VMs under
administrator's control.

=item B<iomem=[ "IOMEM_START,NUM_PAGES[@GFN]", "IOMEM_START,NUM_PAGES[@GFN]", ...]>

Allow auto-translated domains to access specific hardware I/O memory pages.

B<IOMEM_START> is a physical page number. B<NUM_PAGES> is the number of pages,
beginning with B<START_PAGE>, to allow access to. B<GFN> specifies the guest
frame number where the mapping will start in the guest's address space. If
B<GFN> is not specified, the mapping will be performed using B<IOMEM_START>
as a start in the guest's address space, therefore performing a 1:1 mapping
by default.
All of these values must be given in hexadecimal format.

Note that the IOMMU won't be updated with the mappings specified with this
option. This option therefore should not be used to pass through any
IOMMU-protected devices.

It is recommended to only use this option for trusted VMs under
administrator's control.

=item B<irqs=[ NUMBER, NUMBER, ...]>

Allow a guest to access specific physical IRQs.

It is recommended to only use this option for trusted VMs under
administrator's control.

If vuart console is enabled then irq 32 is reserved for it. See
L</vuart="uart"> to know how to enable vuart console.

=item B<max_event_channels=N>

Limit the guest to using at most N event channels (PV interrupts).
Guests use hypervisor resources for each event channel they use.

The default of 1023 should be sufficient for typical guests.  The
maximum value depends on what the guest supports.  Guests supporting the
FIFO-based event channel ABI support up to 131,071 event channels.
Other guests are limited to 4095 (64-bit x86 and ARM) or 1023 (32-bit
x86).

=item B<vdispl=[ "VDISPL_SPEC_STRING", "VDISPL_SPEC_STRING", ...]>

Specifies the virtual display devices to be provided to the guest.

Each B<VDISPL_SPEC_STRING> is a comma-separated list of C<KEY=VALUE>
settings, from the following list:

=over 4

=item C<backend=DOMAIN>

Specifies the backend domain name or id. If not specified Domain-0 is used.

=item C<be-alloc=BOOLEAN>

Indicates if backend can be a buffer provider/allocator for this domain. See
display protocol for details.

=item C<connectors=CONNECTORS>

Specifies virtual connectors for the device in following format
<id>:<W>x<H>;<id>:<W>x<H>... where:

=over 4

=item C<id>

String connector unique id. Space, comma symbols are not allowed.

=item C<W>

Connector width in pixels.

=item C<H>

Connector height in pixels.

=back

B<EXAMPLE>

=over 4

connectors=id0:1920x1080;id1:800x600;id2:640x480

=back

=back

=item B<dm_restrict=BOOLEAN>

Restrict the device model after startup,
to limit the consequencese of security vulnerabilities in qemu.

See docs/features/qemu-depriv.pandoc for more information
on Linux and QEMU version requirements, device model user setup,
and current limitations.

This feature is a B<technology preview>.
See SUPPORT.md for a security support statement.

=item B<device_model_user=USERNAME>

When running dm_restrict, run the device model as this user.

NOTE: Each domain MUST have a SEPARATE username.

See docs/features/qemu-depriv.pandoc for more information.

=item B<vsnd=[ VCARD_SPEC, VCARD_SPEC, ... ]>

Specifies the virtual sound cards to be provided to the guest.
Each B<VCARD_SPEC> is a list, which has a form of
"[VSND_ITEM_SPEC, VSND_ITEM_SPEC, ... ]" (without the quotes).
The virtual sound card has hierarchical structure.
Every card has a set of PCM devices and streams, each could be individually
configured.

B<VSND_ITEM_SPEC> describes individual item parameters.
B<VSND_ITEM_SPEC> is a string of comma separated item parameters
headed by item identifier. Each item parameter is C<KEY=VALUE> pair:

=over 4

"identifier, param = value, ...".

=back

Identifier shall be one of following values: "CARD", "PCM", "STREAM".
The child item treated as belonging to the previously defined parent item.

All parameters are optional.

There are group of parameters which are common for all items.
This group can be defined at higher level of the hierarchy and be fully or
partially re-used by the underlying layers. These parameters are:

=over 4

* number of channels (min/max)

* supported sample rates

* supported sample formats

=back

E.g. one can define these values for the whole card, device or stream.
Every underlying layer in turn can re-define some or all of them to better
fit its needs. For example, card may define number of channels to be
in [1; 8] range, and some particular stream may be limited to [1; 2] only.
The rule is that the underlying layer must be a subset of the upper layer
range.

I<COMMON parameters:>

=over 4

=over 4

=item B<sample-rates=RATES>

List of integer values separated by semicolon: sample-rates=8000;22050;44100

=item B<sample-formats=FORMATS>

List of string values separated by semicolon: sample-formats=s16_le;s8;u32_be

Supported formats: s8, u8, s16_le, s16_be, u16_le, u16_be, s24_le, s24_be,
u24_le, u24_be, s32_le, s32_be, u32_le, u32_be, float_le, float_be,
float64_le, float64_be, iec958_subframe_le, iec958_subframe_be,
mu_law, a_law, ima_adpcm, mpeg, gsm

=item B<channels-min=NUMBER>

The minimum amount of channels.

=item B<channels-max=NUMBER>

The maximum amount of channels.

=item B<buffer-size=NUMBER>

The maximum size in octets of the buffer to allocate per stream.

=back

=back

I<CARD specification:>

=over 4

=over 4

=item B<backend=domain-id>

Specify the backend domain name or id, defaults to dom0.

=item B<short-name=STRING>

Short name of the virtual sound card.

=item B<long-name=STRING>

Long name of the virtual sound card.

=back

=back

I<PCM specification:>

=over 4

=over 4

=item B<name=STRING>

Name of the PCM sound device within the virtual sound card.

=back

=back

I<STREAM specification:>

=over 4

=over 4

=item B<unique-id=STRING>

Unique stream identifier.

=item B<type=TYPE>

Stream type: "p" - playback stream, "c" - capture stream.

=back

=back

I<EXAMPLE:>

    vsnd = [
        ['CARD, short-name=Main, sample-formats=s16_le;s8;u32_be',
            'PCM, name=Main',
                'STREAM, id=0, type=p',
                'STREAM, id=1, type=c, channels-max=2'
        ],
        ['CARD, short-name=Second',
            'PCM, name=Second, buffer-size=1024',
                'STREAM, id=2, type=p',
                'STREAM, id=3, type=c'
        ]
    ]

=item B<vkb=[ "VKB_SPEC_STRING", "VKB_SPEC_STRING", ...]>

Specifies the virtual keyboard device to be provided to the guest.

Each B<VKB_SPEC_STRING> is a comma-separated list of C<KEY=VALUE>
settings from the following list:

=over 4

=item B<unique-id=STRING>

Specifies the unique input device id.

=item B<backend=domain-id>

Specifies the backend domain name or id.

=item B<backend-type=type>

Specifies the backend type: qemu - for QEMU backend or linux - for Linux PV
domain.

=item B<feature-disable-keyboard=BOOLEAN>

Indicates if keyboard device is disabled.

=item B<feature-disable-pointer=BOOLEAN>

Indicates if pointer device is disabled.

=item B<feature-abs-pointer=BOOLEAN>

Indicates if pointer device can return absolute coordinates.

=item B<feature-raw-pointer=BOOLEAN>

Indicates if pointer device can return raw (unscaled) absolute coordinates.

=item B<feature-multi-touch=BOOLEAN>

Indicates if input device supports multi touch.

=item B<multi-touch-width=MULTI_TOUCH_WIDTH>

Set maximum width for multi touch device.

=item B<multi-touch-height=MULTI_TOUCH_HEIGHT>

Set maximum height for multi touch device.

=item B<multi-touch-num-contacts=MULTI_TOUCH_NUM_CONTACTS>

Set maximum contacts number for multi touch device.

=item B<width=WIDTH>

Set maximum width for pointer device.

=item B<height=HEIGHT>

Set maximum height for pointer device.

=back

=item B<virtio=[ "VIRTIO_DEVICE_STRING", "VIRTIO_DEVICE_STRING", ...]>

Specifies the Virtio devices to be provided to the guest.

Each B<VIRTIO_DEVICE_STRING> is a comma-separated list of C<KEY=VALUE> settings
from the following list. As a special case, a single comma is allowed in the
VALUE of the "type" KEY, where the VALUE is set with "virtio,device<N>".

=over 4

=item B<backend=domain-id>

Specifies the backend domain name or id, defaults to dom0.

=item B<type=STRING>

Specifies the compatible string for the specific Virtio device. The same will be
written in the Device Tree compatible property of the Virtio device. For
example, "type=virtio,device22" for the I2C device, whose device-tree binding is
present here:

L<https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/i2c/i2c-virtio.yaml>

For other generic virtio devices, where we don't need to set special or
compatible properties in the Device Tree, the type field must be set to
"virtio,device" or "virtio,device<N>", where "N" is the virtio device id in
hexadecimal format, without the "0x" prefix and all in lower case, like
"virtio,device1a" for the file system device.

=item B<transport=STRING>

Specifies the transport mechanism for the Virtio device, only "mmio" is
supported for now.

=item B<grant_usage=BOOLEAN>

If this option is B<true>, the Xen grants are always enabled.
If this option is B<false>, the Xen grants are always disabled.

If this option is missing, then the default grant setting will be used,
i.e. enable grants if backend-domid != 0.

=back

=item B<tee="STRING">

B<Arm only.> Set TEE type for the guest. TEE is a Trusted Execution
Environment -- separate secure OS found on some platforms. B<STRING> can be one of the:

=over 4

=item B<none>

"Don't allow the guest to use TEE if present on the platform. This is
the default value.

=item B<optee>

Allow a guest to access the host OP-TEE OS. Xen will mediate the
access to OP-TEE and the resource isolation will be provided directly
by OP-TEE. OP-TEE itself may limit the number of guests that can
concurrently use it. This requires a virtualization-aware OP-TEE for
this to work.

You can refer to
L<OP-TEE documentation|https://optee.readthedocs.io/en/latest/architecture/virtualization.html>
for more information about how to enable and configure virtualization support
in OP-TEE.

This feature is a B<technology preview>.

=item B<ffa>

B<Arm only.> Allow a guest to communicate via FF-A with Secure Partitions
(SP), default false.

Currently only a small subset of the FF-A specification is supported. Just
enough to communicate with OP-TEE. In general only direct messaging and
sharing memory with one SP. More advanced use cases where memory might be
shared or donated to multiple SPs are not supported.

See L<https://developer.arm.com/documentation/den0077/latest> for more
information about FF-A.

This feature is a B<technology preview>.

=back

=back

=head2 Paravirtualised (PV) Guest Specific Options

The following options apply only to Paravirtual (PV) guests.

=over 4

=item B<bootloader="PROGRAM">

Run C<PROGRAM> to find the kernel image and ramdisk to use.  Normally
C<PROGRAM> would be C<pygrub>, which is an emulation of
grub/grub2/syslinux. Either B<kernel> or B<bootloader> must be specified
for PV guests.

=item B<bootloader_args=[ "ARG", "ARG", ...]>

Append B<ARG>s to the arguments to the B<bootloader>
program. Alternatively if the argument is a simple string then it will
be split into words at whitespace B<(this second option is deprecated)>.

=item B<bootloader_restrict=BOOLEAN>

Attempt to restrict the bootloader after startup, to limit the
consequences of security vulnerabilities due to parsing guest
owned image files.

See docs/features/qemu-deprivilege.pandoc for more information
on how to setup the unprivileged users.

Note that running the bootloader in restricted mode also implies using
non-interactive mode, and the disk image must be readable by the
restricted user.

=item B<bootloader_user=USERNAME>

When using bootloader_restrict, run the bootloader as this user.  If not
set the default QEMU restrict users will be used.

NOTE: Each domain MUST have a SEPARATE username.

See docs/features/qemu-deprivilege.pandoc for more information.

=item B<e820_host=BOOLEAN>

Selects whether to expose the host e820 (memory map) to the guest via
the virtual e820. When this option is false (0) the guest pseudo-physical
address space consists of a single contiguous RAM region. When this
option is specified the virtual e820 instead reflects the host e820
and contains the same PCI holes. The total amount of RAM represented
by the memory map is always the same, this option configures only how
it is laid out.

Exposing the host e820 to the guest gives the guest kernel the
opportunity to set aside the required part of its pseudo-physical
address space in order to provide address space to map passedthrough
PCI devices. It is guest Operating System dependent whether this
option is required, specifically it is required when using a mainline
Linux ("pvops") kernel. This option defaults to true (1) if any PCI
passthrough devices are configured and false (0) otherwise. If you do not
configure any passthrough devices at domain creation time but expect
to hotplug devices later then you should set this option. Conversely
if your particular guest kernel does not require this behaviour then
it is safe to allow this to be enabled but you may wish to disable it
anyway.

=back

=head2 Fully-virtualised (HVM) Guest Specific Options

The following options apply only to Fully-virtualised (HVM) guests.

=head3 Boot Device

=over 4

=item B<boot="STRING">

Specifies the emulated virtual device to boot from.

Possible values are:

=over 4

=item B<c>

Hard disk.

=item B<d>

CD-ROM.

=item B<n>

Network / PXE.

=back

B<Note:> multiple options can be given and will be attempted in the order they
are given, e.g. to boot from CD-ROM but fall back to the hard disk you can
specify it as B<dc>.

The default is B<cd>, meaning try booting from the hard disk first, but fall
back to the CD-ROM.


=back

=head3 Emulated disk controller type

=over 4

=item B<hdtype=STRING>

Specifies the hard disk type.

Possible values are:

=over 4

=item B<ide>

If thise mode is specified B<xl> adds an emulated IDE controller, which is
suitable even for older operation systems.

=item B<ahci>

If this mode is specified, B<xl> adds an ich9 disk controller in AHCI mode and
uses it with upstream QEMU to emulate disks instead of IDE. It decreases boot
time but may not be supported by default in older operating systems, e.g.
Windows XP.

=back

The default is B<ide>.

=back

=head3 Paging

The following options control the mechanisms used to virtualise guest
memory.  The defaults are selected to give the best results for the
common cases so you should normally leave these options
unspecified.

=over 4

=item B<hap=BOOLEAN>

Turns "hardware assisted paging" (the use of the hardware nested page
table feature) on or off.  This feature is called EPT (Extended Page
Tables) by Intel and NPT (Nested Page Tables) or RVI (Rapid
Virtualisation Indexing) by AMD. If turned
off, Xen will run the guest in "shadow page table" mode where the
guest's page table updates and/or TLB flushes etc. will be emulated.
Use of HAP is the default when available.

=item B<oos=BOOLEAN>

Turns "out of sync pagetables" on or off.  When running in shadow page
table mode, the guest's page table updates may be deferred as
specified in the Intel/AMD architecture manuals.  However, this may
expose unexpected bugs in the guest, or find bugs in Xen, so it is
possible to disable this feature.  Use of out of sync page tables,
when Xen thinks it appropriate, is the default.

=item B<shadow_memory=MBYTES>

Number of megabytes to set aside for shadowing guest pagetable pages
(effectively acting as a cache of translated pages) or to use for HAP
state. By default this is 1MB per guest vCPU plus 8KB per MB of guest
RAM. You should not normally need to adjust this value. However, if you
are not using hardware assisted paging (i.e. you are using shadow
mode) and your guest workload consists of a very large number of
similar processes then increasing this value may improve performance.

=back

=head3 Processor and Platform Features

The following options allow various processor and platform level
features to be hidden or exposed from the guest's point of view. This
can be useful when running older guest Operating Systems which may
misbehave when faced with more modern features. In general, you should
accept the defaults for these options wherever possible.

=over 4

=item B<bios="STRING">

Select the virtual firmware that is exposed to the guest.
By default, a guess is made based on the device model, but sometimes
it may be useful to request a different one, like UEFI.

=over 4

=item B<rombios>

Loads ROMBIOS, a 16-bit x86 compatible BIOS.

=item B<seabios>

Loads SeaBIOS, a 16-bit x86 compatible BIOS. This is used by default
with device_model_version=qemu-xen.

=item B<ovmf>

Loads OVMF, a standard UEFI firmware by Tianocore project.
Requires device_model_version=qemu-xen.

=back

=item B<bios_path_override="PATH">

Override the path to the blob to be used as BIOS. The blob provided here MUST
be consistent with the B<bios=> which you have specified. You should not
normally need to specify this option.

Requires B<device_model_version="qemu-xen">.

=item B<pae=BOOLEAN>

Hide or expose the IA32 Physical Address Extensions. These extensions
make it possible for a 32 bit guest Operating System to access more
than 4GB of RAM. Enabling PAE also enabled other features such as
NX. PAE is required if you wish to run a 64-bit guest Operating
System. In general, you should leave this enabled and allow the guest
Operating System to choose whether or not to use PAE. (X86 only)

=item B<acpi=BOOLEAN>

Expose ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) tables from
the virtual firmware to the guest Operating System. ACPI is required
by most modern guest Operating Systems. This option is enabled by
default and usually you should omit it. However, it may be necessary to
disable ACPI for compatibility with some guest Operating Systems.
This option is true for x86 while it's false for ARM by default.

=item B<acpi_s3=BOOLEAN>

Include the S3 (suspend-to-ram) power state in the virtual firmware
ACPI table. True (1) by default.

=item B<acpi_s4=BOOLEAN>

Include S4 (suspend-to-disk) power state in the virtual firmware ACPI
table. True (1) by default.

=item B<acpi_laptop_slate=BOOLEAN>

Include the Windows laptop/slate mode switch device in the virtual
firmware ACPI table. False (0) by default.

=item B<apic=BOOLEAN>

B<(x86 only)> Include information regarding APIC (Advanced Programmable Interrupt
Controller) in the firmware/BIOS tables on a single processor
guest. This causes the MP (multiprocessor) and PIR (PCI Interrupt
Routing) tables to be exported by the virtual firmware. This option
has no effect on a guest with multiple virtual CPUs as they must
always include these tables. This option is enabled by default and you
should usually omit it but it may be necessary to disable these
firmware tables when using certain older guest Operating
Systems. These tables have been superseded by newer constructs within
the ACPI tables.

=item B<nx=BOOLEAN>

B<(x86 only)> Hides or exposes the No-eXecute capability. This allows a guest
Operating System to map pages in such a way that they cannot be executed which
can enhance security. This options requires that PAE also be
enabled.

=item B<hpet=BOOLEAN>

B<(x86 only)> Enables or disables HPET (High Precision Event Timer). This
option is enabled by default and you should usually omit it.
It may be necessary to disable the HPET in order to improve compatibility with
guest Operating Systems.

=item B<altp2m="MODE">

B<(x86 only)> Specifies the access mode to the alternate-p2m capability.
Alternate-p2m allows a guest to manage multiple p2m guest physical "memory
views" (as opposed to a single p2m).
You may want this option if you want to access-control/isolate
access to specific guest physical memory pages accessed by the guest, e.g. for
domain memory introspection or for isolation/access-control of memory between
components within a single guest domain. This option is disabled by default.

The valid values are as follows:

=over 4

=item B<disabled>

Altp2m is disabled for the domain (default).

=item B<mixed>

The mixed mode allows access to the altp2m interface for both in-guest
and external tools as well.

=item B<external>

Enables access to the alternate-p2m capability by external privileged tools.

=item B<limited>

Enables limited access to the alternate-p2m capability,
ie. giving the guest access only to enable/disable the VMFUNC and #VE features.

=back

=item B<altp2mhvm=BOOLEAN>

Enables or disables HVM guest access to alternate-p2m capability.
Alternate-p2m allows a guest to manage multiple p2m guest physical
"memory views" (as opposed to a single p2m). This option is
disabled by default and is available only to HVM domains.
You may want this option if you want to access-control/isolate
access to specific guest physical memory pages accessed by
the guest, e.g. for HVM domain memory introspection or
for isolation/access-control of memory between components within
a single guest HVM domain. B<This option is deprecated, use the option
"altp2m" instead.>

B<Note>: While the option "altp2mhvm" is deprecated, legacy applications for
x86 systems will continue to work using it.

=item B<altp2m_count=NUMBER>

Specifies the maximum number of alternate-p2m views available to the guest.
This setting is crucial in domain introspection scenarios that require
multiple physical-to-machine (p2m) memory mappings to be established
simultaneously.

Enabling multiple p2m views may increase memory usage. It is advisable to
review and adjust the B<shadow_memory> setting as necessary to accommodate
the additional memory requirements.

B<Note>: This option is ignored if B<altp2m> is disabled. The default value
is 10.

=item B<nestedhvm=BOOLEAN>

Enable or disables guest access to hardware virtualisation features,
e.g. it allows a guest Operating System to also function as a
hypervisor. You may want this
option if you want to run another hypervisor (including another copy
of Xen) within a Xen guest or to support a guest Operating System
which uses hardware virtualisation extensions (e.g. Windows XP
compatibility mode on more modern Windows OS).
This option is disabled by default.

=item B<cpuid="LIBXL_STRING"> or B<cpuid=[ "XEND_STRING", "XEND_STRING" ]>

Configure the value returned when a guest executes the CPUID instruction.
Two versions of config syntax are recognized: libxl and xend.

Both formats use a common notation for specifying a single feature bit.
Possible values are:
  '1' -> force the corresponding bit to 1
  '0' -> force to 0
  'x' -> Get a safe value (pass through and mask with the default policy)
  'k' -> pass through the host bit value (at boot only - value preserved on migrate)
  's' -> legacy alias for 'k'

B<Libxl format>:

=over 4

The libxl format is a single string, starting with the word "host", and
followed by a comma separated list of key=value pairs.  A few keys take a
numerical value, all others take a single character which describes what to do
with the feature bit.  e.g.:

=over 4

cpuid="host,tm=0,sse3=0"

=back

List of keys taking a value:

=over 4

apicidsize brandid clflush family localapicid maxleaf maxhvleaf model nc
proccount procpkg stepping

=back

List of keys taking a character can be found in the public header file
L<arch-x86/cpufeatureset.h|https://xenbits.xen.org/docs/unstable/hypercall/x86_64/include,public,arch-x86,cpufeatureset.h.html>

The feature names described in C<cpufeatureset.h> should be specified in all
lowercase letters, and with underscores converted to hyphens.  For example in
order to reference feature C<LAHF_LM> the string C<lahf-lm> should be used.

Note that C<clflush> is described as an option that takes a value, and that
takes precedence over the C<clflush> flag in C<cpufeatureset.h>.  The feature
flag must be referenced as C<clfsh>.

=back

B<Xend format>:

=over 4

Xend format consists of an array of one or more strings of the form
"leaf:reg=bitstring,...".  e.g. (matching the libxl example above):

=over 4

cpuid=["1:ecx=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx0,edx=xx0xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx", ...]

=back

"leaf" is an integer, either decimal or hex with a "0x" prefix.  e.g. to
specify something in the AMD feature leaves, use "0x80000001:ecx=...".

Some leaves have subleaves which can be specified as "leaf,subleaf".  e.g. for
the Intel structured feature leaf, use "7,0:ebx=..."

The bitstring represents all bits in the register, its length must be 32
chars.  Each successive character represent a lesser-significant bit.

=back

Note: when specifying B<cpuid> for hypervisor leaves (0x4000xxxx major group)
only the lowest 8 bits of leaf's 0x4000xx00 EAX register are processed, the
rest are ignored (these 8 bits signify maximum number of hypervisor leaves).

More info about the CPUID instruction can be found in the processor manuals,
and on Wikipedia: L<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPUID>

=item B<acpi_firmware="STRING">

Specifies a path to a file that contains extra ACPI firmware tables to pass into
a guest. The file can contain several tables in their binary AML form
concatenated together. Each table self describes its length so no additional
information is needed. These tables will be added to the ACPI table set in the
guest. Note that existing tables cannot be overridden by this feature. For
example, this cannot be used to override tables like DSDT, FADT, etc.

=item B<smbios_firmware="STRING">

Specifies a path to a file that contains extra SMBIOS firmware structures to
pass into a guest. The file can contain a set of DMTF predefined structures
which will override the internal defaults. Not all predefined structures can be
overridden,
only the following types: 0, 1, 2, 3, 11, 22, 39. The file can also contain any
number of vendor defined SMBIOS structures (type 128 - 255). Since SMBIOS
structures do not present their overall size, each entry in the file must be
preceded by a 32b integer indicating the size of the following structure.

=item B<smbios=[ "SMBIOS_SPEC_STRING", "SMBIOS_SPEC_STRING", ...]>

Specifies the SMBIOS values to be provided to the guest.  These set or
override specific entries in the tables provided to the guest.

Each B<SMBIOS_SPEC_STRING> is a C<KEY=VALUE> string from the following list:

=over 4

=item B<bios_vendor=STRING>

=item B<bios_version=STRING>

=item B<system_manufacturer=STRING>

=item B<system_product_name=STRING>

=item B<system_version=STRING>

=item B<system_serial_number=STRING>

=item B<baseboard_manufacturer=STRING>

=item B<baseboard_product_name=STRING>

=item B<baseboard_version=STRING>

=item B<baseboard_serial_number=STRING>

=item B<baseboard_asset_tag=STRING>

=item B<baseboard_location_in_chassis=STRING>

=item B<enclosure_manufacturer=STRING>

=item B<enclosure_serial_number=STRING>

=item B<enclosure_asset_tag=STRING>

=item B<battery_manufacturer=STRING>

=item B<battery_device_name=STRING>

=item B<oem=STRING>

oem= can be specified up to 99 times.

=back

=item B<ms_vm_genid="OPTION">

Provide a VM generation ID to the guest.

The VM generation ID is a 128-bit random number that a guest may use
to determine if the guest has been restored from an earlier snapshot
or cloned.

This is required for Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (and later) domain
controllers.

Valid options are:

=over 4

=item B<generate>

Generate a random VM generation ID every time the domain is created or
restored.

=item B<none>

Do not provide a VM generation ID.

=back

See also "Virtual Machine Generation ID" by Microsoft:
L<https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/hyperv_v2/virtual-machine-generation-identifier>

=back 

=head3 Guest Virtual Time Controls

=over 4

=item B<tsc_mode="MODE">

B<(x86 only)> Specifies how the TSC (Time Stamp Counter) should be provided to
the guest. B<Specifying this option as a number is deprecated.>

Options are:

=over 4

=item B<default>

Guest rdtsc/p is executed natively when monotonicity can be guaranteed
and emulated otherwise (with frequency scaled if necessary).

If a HVM container in B<default> TSC mode is created on a host that
provides constant host TSC, its guest TSC frequency will be the same
as the host. If it is later migrated to another host that provide
constant host TSC and supports Intel VMX TSC scaling/AMD SVM TSC
ratio, its guest TSC frequency will be the same before and after
migration, and guest rdtsc/p will be executed natively after migration as well

=item B<always_emulate>

Guest rdtsc/p is always emulated and the virtual TSC will appear to increment
(kernel and user) at a fixed 1GHz rate, regardless of the pCPU HZ rate or
power state. Although there is an overhead associated with emulation,
this will NOT affect underlying CPU performance.

=item B<native>

Guest rdtsc/p is always executed natively (no monotonicity/frequency
guarantees). Guest rdtsc/p is emulated at native frequency if unsupported
by h/w, else executed natively.

=item B<native_paravirt>

This mode has been removed.

=back

Please see B<xen-tscmode(7)> for more information on this option.

=item B<localtime=BOOLEAN>

Set the real time clock to local time or to UTC. False (0) by default,
i.e. set to UTC.

=item B<rtc_timeoffset=SECONDS>

Set the real time clock offset in seconds. No offset (0) by default.

=item B<vpt_align=BOOLEAN>

Specifies that periodic Virtual Platform Timers should be aligned to
reduce guest interrupts. Enabling this option can reduce power
consumption, especially when a guest uses a high timer interrupt
frequency (HZ) values. The default is true (1).

=item B<timer_mode="MODE">

Specifies the mode for Virtual Timers. The valid values are as follows:

=over 4

=item B<delay_for_missed_ticks>

Delay for missed ticks. Do not advance a vCPU's time beyond the
correct delivery time for interrupts that have been missed due to
preemption. Deliver missed interrupts when the vCPU is rescheduled and
advance the vCPU's virtual time stepwise for each one.

=item B<no_delay_for_missed_ticks>

No delay for missed ticks. As above, missed interrupts are delivered,
but guest time always tracks wallclock (i.e., real) time while doing
so. This is the default.

=item B<no_missed_ticks_pending>

No missed interrupts are held pending. Instead, to ensure ticks are
delivered at some non-zero rate, if we detect missed ticks then the
internal tick alarm is not disabled if the vCPU is preempted during
the next tick period.

=item B<one_missed_tick_pending>

One missed tick pending. Missed interrupts are collapsed
together and delivered as one 'late tick'.  Guest time always tracks
wallclock (i.e., real) time.

=back

=back

=head3 Memory layout

=over 4

=item B<mmio_hole=MBYTES>

Specifies the size the MMIO hole below 4GiB will be.  Only valid for
B<device_model_version="qemu-xen">.

Cannot be smaller than 256. Cannot be larger than 3840.

Known good large value is 3072.

=back

=head3 Support for Paravirtualisation of HVM Guests

The following options allow Paravirtualised features (such as devices)
to be exposed to the guest Operating System in an HVM guest.
Utilising these features requires specific guest support but when
available they will result in improved performance.

=over 4

=item B<xen_platform_pci=BOOLEAN>

Enable or disable the Xen platform PCI device.  The presence of this
virtual device enables a guest Operating System (subject to the
availability of suitable drivers) to make use of paravirtualisation
features such as disk and network devices etc. Enabling these drivers
improves performance and is strongly recommended when available. PV
drivers are available for various Operating Systems including HVM
Linux (out-of-the-box) and Microsoft
Windows L<https://xenproject.org/windows-pv-drivers/>.

Setting B<xen_platform_pci=0> with the default device_model "qemu-xen"
requires at least QEMU 1.6.


=item B<xen_platform_pci_bar_uc=BOOLEAN>

B<x86 only:> Select whether the memory BAR of the Xen platform PCI device
should have uncacheable (UC) cache attribute set in MTRR.

Default is B<true>.

=item B<viridian=[ "GROUP", "GROUP", ...]> or B<viridian=BOOLEAN>

The groups of Microsoft Hyper-V (AKA viridian) compatible enlightenments
exposed to the guest. The following groups of enlightenments may be
specified:

=over 4

=item B<base>

This group incorporates the Hypercall MSRs, Virtual processor index MSR,
and APIC access MSRs. These enlightenments can improve performance of
Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 onwards and setting this option
for such guests is strongly recommended.
This group is also a pre-requisite for all others. If it is disabled
then it is an error to attempt to enable any other group.

=item B<freq>

This group incorporates the TSC and APIC frequency MSRs. These
enlightenments can improve performance of Windows 7 and Windows
Server 2008 R2 onwards.

=item B<time_ref_count>

This group incorporates Partition Time Reference Counter MSR. This
enlightenment can improve performance of Windows 8 and Windows
Server 2012 onwards.

=item B<reference_tsc>

This set incorporates the Partition Reference TSC MSR. This
enlightenment can improve performance of Windows 7 and Windows
Server 2008 R2 onwards.

=item B<hcall_remote_tlb_flush>

This set incorporates use of hypercalls for remote TLB flushing.
This enlightenment may improve performance of Windows guests running
on hosts with higher levels of (physical) CPU contention.

=item B<apic_assist>

This set incorporates use of the APIC assist page to avoid EOI of
the local APIC.
This enlightenment may improve performance of guests that make use of
per-vCPU event channel upcall vectors.
Note that this enlightenment will have no effect if the guest is
using APICv posted interrupts.

=item B<crash_ctl>

This group incorporates the crash control MSRs. These enlightenments
allow Windows to write crash information such that it can be logged
by Xen.

=item B<stimer>

This set incorporates the SynIC and synthetic timer MSRs. Windows will
use synthetic timers in preference to emulated HPET for a source of
ticks and hence enabling this group will ensure that ticks will be
consistent with use of an enlightened time source (B<time_ref_count> or
B<reference_tsc>).

=item B<hcall_ipi>

This set incorporates use of a hypercall for interprocessor interrupts.
This enlightenment may improve performance of Windows guests with multiple
virtual CPUs.

=item B<ex_processor_masks>

This set enables new hypercall variants taking a variably-sized sparse
B<Virtual Processor Set> as an argument, rather than a simple 64-bit
mask. Hence this enlightenment must be specified for guests with more
than 64 vCPUs if B<hcall_remote_tlb_flush> and/or B<hcall_ipi> are also
specified.

=item B<no_vp_limit>

This group when set indicates to a guest that the hypervisor does not
explicitly have any limits on the number of Virtual processors a guest
is allowed to bring up. It is strongly recommended to keep this enabled
for guests with more than 64 vCPUs.

=item B<cpu_hotplug>

This set enables dynamic changes to Virtual processor states in Windows
guests effectively allowing vCPU hotplug.

=item B<defaults>

This is a special value that enables the default set of groups, which
is currently the B<base>, B<freq>, B<time_ref_count>, B<apic_assist>,
B<crash_ctl>, B<no_vp_limit> and B<cpu_hotplug> groups.

=item B<all>

This is a special value that enables all available groups.

=back

Groups can be disabled by prefixing the name with '!'. So, for example,
to enable all groups except B<freq>, specify:

=over 4

B<viridian=[ "all", "!freq" ]>

=back

For details of the enlightenments see the latest version of Microsoft's
Hypervisor Top-Level Functional Specification.

The enlightenments should be harmless for other versions of Windows
(although they will not give any benefit) and the majority of other
non-Windows OSes.
However it is known that they are incompatible with some other Operating
Systems and in some circumstance can prevent Xen's own paravirtualisation
interfaces for HVM guests from being used.

The viridian option can be specified as a boolean. A value of true (1)
is equivalent to the list [ "defaults" ], and a value of false (0) is
equivalent to an empty list.

=item B<hvm_pirq=BOOLEAN>

Select whether the guest is allowed to route interrupts from devices (either
emulated or passed through) over event channels.

This option is disabled by default.

=back

=head3 Emulated VGA Graphics Device

The following options control the features of the emulated graphics
device.  Many of these options behave similarly to the equivalent key
in the B<VFB_SPEC_STRING> for configuring virtual frame buffer devices
(see above).

=over 4

=item B<videoram=MBYTES>

Sets the amount of RAM which the emulated video card will contain,
which in turn limits the resolutions and bit depths which will be
available.

When using stdvga, the default and minimum is 16 MB.

When using the emulated Cirrus graphics card (B<vga="cirrus">), the
default and minimum is 8 MB.

For QXL vga, both the default and minimal are 128MB.
If B<videoram> is set less than 128MB, an error will be triggered.

=item B<stdvga=BOOLEAN>

Specifies a standard VGA card with VBE (VESA BIOS Extensions) as the
emulated graphics device. If your guest supports VBE 2.0 or
later (e.g. Windows XP onwards) then you should enable this.
stdvga supports more video ram and bigger resolutions than Cirrus.
The default is false (0) which means to emulate
a Cirrus Logic GD5446 VGA card.
B<This option is deprecated, use vga="stdvga" instead>.

=item B<vga="STRING">

Selects the emulated video card.
Options are: B<none>, B<stdvga>, B<cirrus> and B<qxl>.
The default is B<cirrus>.

In general, QXL should work with the Spice remote display protocol
for acceleration, and a QXL driver is necessary in the guest in that case.
QXL can also work with the VNC protocol, but it will be like a standard
VGA card without acceleration.

=item B<vnc=BOOLEAN>

Allow access to the display via the VNC protocol.  This enables the
other VNC-related settings.  The default is (1) enabled.

=item B<vnclisten="ADDRESS[:DISPLAYNUM]">

Specifies the IP address and, optionally, the VNC display number to use.

=item B<vncdisplay=DISPLAYNUM>

Specifies the VNC display number to use. The actual TCP port number
will be DISPLAYNUM+5900.

=item B<vncunused=BOOLEAN>

Requests that the VNC display setup searches for a free TCP port to use.
The actual display used can be accessed with B<xl vncviewer>.

=item B<vncpasswd="PASSWORD">

Specifies the password for the VNC server. If the password is set to an
empty string, authentication on the VNC server will be disabled
allowing any user to connect.

=item B<keymap="LANG">

Configure the keymap to use for the keyboard associated with this
display. If the input method does not easily support raw keycodes
(e.g. this is often the case when using VNC) then this allows us to
correctly map the input keys into keycodes seen by the guest. The
specific values which are accepted are defined by the version of the
device-model which you are using. See B<Keymaps> below or consult the
B<qemu(1)> manpage. The default is B<en-us>.

=item B<sdl=BOOLEAN>

Specifies that the display should be presented via an X window (using
Simple DirectMedia Layer). The default is (0) not enabled.

=item B<nographic=BOOLEAN>

Enable or disable the virtual graphics device.  The default is to
provide a VGA graphics device but this option can be used to disable
it.

=back

=head3 Spice Graphics Support

The following options control the features of SPICE.

=over 4

=item B<spice=BOOLEAN>

Allow access to the display via the SPICE protocol.  This enables the
other SPICE-related settings.

=item B<spicehost="ADDRESS">

Specifies the interface address to listen on if given, otherwise any
interface.

=item B<spiceport=NUMBER>

Specifies the port to listen on by the SPICE server if SPICE is
enabled.

=item B<spicetls_port=NUMBER>

Specifies the secure port to listen on by the SPICE server if SPICE
is enabled. At least one of B<spiceport> or B<spicetls_port> must be
given if SPICE is enabled.

B<Note:> the options depending on B<spicetls_port>
have not been supported.

=item B<spicedisable_ticketing=BOOLEAN>

Enable clients to connect without specifying a password. When disabled,
B<spicepasswd> must be set. The default is (0) false.

=item B<spicepasswd="PASSWORD">

Specify the password which is used by clients for establishing a connection.

=item B<spiceagent_mouse=BOOLEAN>

Whether SPICE agent is used for client mouse mode. The default is (1) true.

=item B<spicevdagent=BOOLEAN>

Enables the SPICE vdagent. The SPICE vdagent is an optional component for
enhancing user experience and performing guest-oriented management
tasks. Its features include: client mouse mode (no need to grab the mouse
by the client, no mouse lag), automatic adjustment of screen resolution,
copy and paste (text and image) between the client and the guest. It also
requires the vdagent service installed on the guest OS to work.
The default is (0) disabled.

=item B<spice_clipboard_sharing=BOOLEAN>

Enables SPICE clipboard sharing (copy/paste). It requires that
B<spicevdagent> is enabled. The default is (0) false.

=item B<spiceusbredirection=NUMBER>

Enables SPICE USB redirection. Creates a NUMBER of USB redirection channels
for redirecting up to 4 USB devices from the SPICE client to the guest's QEMU.
It requires an USB controller and, if not defined, it will automatically add
an USB2.0 controller. The default is (0) disabled.

=item B<spice_image_compression="COMPRESSION">

Specifies what image compression is to be used by SPICE (if given), otherwise
the QEMU default will be used. Please see the documentation of your QEMU
version for more details.

Available options are: B<auto_glz, auto_lz, quic, glz, lz, off>.

=item B<spice_streaming_video="VIDEO">

Specifies what streaming video setting is to be used by SPICE (if given),
otherwise the QEMU default will be used.

Available options are: B<filter, all, off>.

=back

=head3 Miscellaneous Emulated Hardware

=over 4

=item B<serial=[ "DEVICE", "DEVICE", ...]>

Redirect virtual serial ports to B<DEVICE>s. Please see the
B<-serial> option in the B<qemu(1)> manpage for details of the valid
B<DEVICE> options. Default is B<vc> when in graphical mode and
B<stdio> if B<nographic=1> is used.

The form serial=DEVICE is also accepted for backwards compatibility.

=item B<soundhw="DEVICE">

Select the virtual sound card to expose to the guest. The valid devices are
B<hda>, B<ac97>, B<es1370>, B<adlib>, B<cs4231a>, B<gus>, B<sb16> if there are
available with the device model QEMU. The default is not to export any sound
device.

=item B<vkb_device=BOOLEAN>

Specifies that the HVM guest gets a vkdb. The default is true (1).

This option is only used when B<vkb=[]> is unset.

=item B<usb=BOOLEAN>

Enables or disables an emulated USB bus in the guest.

=item B<usbversion=NUMBER>

Specifies the type of an emulated USB bus in the guest, values 1 for USB1.1,
2 for USB2.0 and 3 for USB3.0. It is available only with an upstream QEMU.
Due to implementation limitations this is not compatible with the B<usb>
and B<usbdevice> parameters.
Default is (0) no USB controller defined.

=item B<usbdevice=[ "DEVICE", "DEVICE", ...]>

Adds B<DEVICE>s to the emulated USB bus. The USB bus must also be
enabled using B<usb=1>. The most common use for this option is
B<usbdevice=['tablet']> which adds a pointer device using absolute
coordinates. Such devices function better than relative coordinate
devices (such as a standard mouse) since many methods of exporting
guest graphics (such as VNC) work better in this mode. Note that this
is independent of the actual pointer device you are using on the
host/client side.

Host devices can also be passed through in this way, by specifying
host:USBID, where USBID is of the form xxxx:yyyy.  The USBID can
typically be found by using B<lsusb(1)> or B<usb-devices(1)>.

If you wish to use the "host:bus.addr" format, remove any leading '0' from the
bus and addr. For example, for the USB device on bus 008 dev 002, you should
write "host:8.2".

The form usbdevice=DEVICE is also accepted for backwards compatibility.

More valid options can be found in the "usbdevice" section of the QEMU
documentation.

=item B<vendor_device="VENDOR_DEVICE">

Selects which variant of the QEMU xen-pvdevice should be used for this
guest. Valid values are:

=over 4

=item B<none>

The xen-pvdevice should be omitted. This is the default.

=item B<xenserver>

The xenserver variant of the xen-pvdevice (device-id=C000) will be
specified, enabling the use of XenServer PV drivers in the guest.

=back

This parameter only takes effect when device_model_version=qemu-xen.
See B<xen-pci-device-reservations(7)> for more information.

=back

=head2 PVH Guest Specific Options

=over 4

=item B<nestedhvm=BOOLEAN>

Enable or disables guest access to hardware virtualisation features,
e.g. it allows a guest Operating System to also function as a hypervisor.
You may want this option if you want to run another hypervisor (including
another copy of Xen) within a Xen guest or to support a guest Operating
System which uses hardware virtualisation extensions (e.g. Windows XP
compatibility mode on more modern Windows OS).

This option is disabled by default.

=item B<bootloader="PROGRAM">

Run C<PROGRAM> to find the kernel image and ramdisk to use.  Normally
C<PROGRAM> would be C<pygrub>, which is an emulation of
grub/grub2/syslinux. Either B<kernel> or B<bootloader> must be specified
for PV guests.

=item B<bootloader_args=[ "ARG", "ARG", ...]>

Append B<ARG>s to the arguments to the B<bootloader>
program. Alternatively if the argument is a simple string then it will
be split into words at whitespace B<(this second option is deprecated)>.

=item B<bootloader_restrict=BOOLEAN>

Attempt to restrict the bootloader after startup, to limit the
consequences of security vulnerabilities due to parsing guest
owned image files.

See docs/features/qemu-deprivilege.pandoc for more information
on how to setup the unprivileged users.

Note that running the bootloader in restricted mode also implies using
non-interactive mode, and the disk image must be readable by the
restricted user.

=item B<bootloader_user=USERNAME>

When using bootloader_restrict, run the bootloader as this user.

NOTE: Each domain MUST have a SEPARATE username.

See docs/features/qemu-deprivilege.pandoc for more information.

=item B<timer_mode="MODE">

Specifies the mode for Virtual Timers. The valid values are as follows:

=over 4

=item B<delay_for_missed_ticks>

Delay for missed ticks. Do not advance a vCPU's time beyond the
correct delivery time for interrupts that have been missed due to
preemption. Deliver missed interrupts when the vCPU is rescheduled and
advance the vCPU's virtual time stepwise for each one.

=item B<no_delay_for_missed_ticks>

No delay for missed ticks. As above, missed interrupts are delivered,
but guest time always tracks wallclock (i.e., real) time while doing
so. This is the default.

=item B<no_missed_ticks_pending>

No missed interrupts are held pending. Instead, to ensure ticks are
delivered at some non-zero rate, if we detect missed ticks then the
internal tick alarm is not disabled if the vCPU is preempted during
the next tick period.

=item B<one_missed_tick_pending>

One missed tick pending. Missed interrupts are collapsed
together and delivered as one 'late tick'.  Guest time always tracks
wallclock (i.e., real) time.

=back

=back

=head3 Paging

The following options control the mechanisms used to virtualise guest
memory.  The defaults are selected to give the best results for the
common cases so you should normally leave these options
unspecified.

=over 4

=item B<hap=BOOLEAN>

Turns "hardware assisted paging" (the use of the hardware nested page
table feature) on or off.  This feature is called EPT (Extended Page
Tables) by Intel and NPT (Nested Page Tables) or RVI (Rapid
Virtualisation Indexing) by AMD. If turned
off, Xen will run the guest in "shadow page table" mode where the
guest's page table updates and/or TLB flushes etc. will be emulated.
Use of HAP is the default when available.

=item B<oos=BOOLEAN>

Turns "out of sync pagetables" on or off.  When running in shadow page
table mode, the guest's page table updates may be deferred as
specified in the Intel/AMD architecture manuals.  However, this may
expose unexpected bugs in the guest, or find bugs in Xen, so it is
possible to disable this feature.  Use of out of sync page tables,
when Xen thinks it appropriate, is the default.

=item B<shadow_memory=MBYTES>

Number of megabytes to set aside for shadowing guest pagetable pages
(effectively acting as a cache of translated pages) or to use for HAP
state. By default this is 1MB per guest vCPU plus 8KB per MB of guest
RAM. You should not normally need to adjust this value. However, if you
are not using hardware assisted paging (i.e. you are using shadow
mode) and your guest workload consists of a very large number of
similar processes then increasing this value may improve performance.

On Arm, this field is used to determine the size of the guest P2M pages
pool, and the default value is the same as x86 HAP mode, plus 512KB to
cover the extended regions. Users should adjust this value if bigger
P2M pool size is needed.

=back

=head2 Device-Model Options

The following options control the selection of the device-model.  This
is the component which provides emulation of the virtual devices to an
HVM guest.  For a PV guest a device-model is sometimes used to provide
backends for certain PV devices (most usually a virtual framebuffer
device).

=over 4

=item B<device_model_version="DEVICE-MODEL">

Selects which variant of the device-model should be used for this
guest.

Valid values are:

=over 4

=item B<qemu-xen>

Use the device-model merged into the upstream QEMU project.
This device-model is the default for Linux dom0.

=back

It is recommended to accept the default value for new guests.  If
you have existing guests then, depending on the nature of the guest
Operating System, you may wish to force them to use the device
model which they were installed with.

=item B<device_model_override="PATH">

Override the path to the binary to be used as the device-model running in
toolstack domain. The binary provided here MUST be consistent with the
B<device_model_version> which you have specified. You should not normally need
to specify this option.

=item B<stubdomain_kernel="PATH">

Override the path to the kernel image used as device-model stubdomain.
The binary provided here MUST be consistent with the
B<device_model_version> which you have specified.
In case of B<qemu-xen> it is expected to be Linux-based stubdomain
kernel.

=item B<stubdomain_cmdline="STRING">

Set the device-model stubdomain kernel command line to B<STRING>.

=item B<stubdomain_ramdisk="PATH">

Override the path to the ramdisk image used as device-model stubdomain.
The binary provided here is to be used by a kernel pointed by B<stubdomain_kernel>.
It is known to be used only by Linux-based stubdomain kernel.

=item B<stubdomain_memory=MBYTES>

Start the stubdomain with MBYTES megabytes of RAM. Default is 128.

=item B<device_model_stubdomain_override=BOOLEAN>

Override the use of stubdomain based device-model.  Normally this will
be automatically selected based upon the other features and options
you have selected.

=item B<device_model_stubdomain_seclabel="LABEL">

Assign an XSM security label to the device-model stubdomain.

=item B<device_model_args=[ "ARG", "ARG", ...]>

Pass additional arbitrary options on the device-model command
line. Each element in the list is passed as an option to the
device-model.

=item B<device_model_args_pv=[ "ARG", "ARG", ...]>

Pass additional arbitrary options on the device-model command line for
a PV device model only. Each element in the list is passed as an
option to the device-model.

=item B<device_model_args_hvm=[ "ARG", "ARG", ...]>

Pass additional arbitrary options on the device-model command line for
an HVM device model only. Each element in the list is passed as an
option to the device-model.

=back

=head2 Keymaps

The keymaps available are defined by the device-model which you are
using. Commonly this includes:

        ar  de-ch  es  fo     fr-ca  hu  ja  mk     no  pt-br  sv
        da  en-gb  et  fr     fr-ch  is  lt  nl     pl  ru     th
        de  en-us  fi  fr-be  hr     it  lv  nl-be  pt  sl     tr

The default is B<en-us>.

See B<qemu(1)> for more information.

=head2 Architecture Specific options

=head3 ARM

=over 4

=item B<gic_version="vN">

Version of the GIC emulated for the guest.

Currently, the following versions are supported:

=over 4

=item B<v2>

Emulate a GICv2

=item B<v3>

Emulate a GICv3. Note that the emulated GIC does not support the
GICv2 compatibility mode.

=item B<default>

Emulate the same version as the native GIC hardware used by the host where
the domain was created.

=back

This requires hardware compatibility with the requested version, either
natively or via hardware backwards compatibility support.

=item B<vuart="uart">

To enable vuart console, user must specify the following option in the
VM config file:

vuart = "sbsa_uart"

Currently, only the "sbsa_uart" model is supported for ARM.

=back

=over 4

=item B<sve="vl">

The `sve` parameter enables Arm Scalable Vector Extension (SVE) usage for the
guest and sets the maximum SVE vector length, the option is applicable only to
AArch64 guests.
A value equal to "disabled" disables the feature, this is the default value.
Allowed values are "disabled", "128", "256", "384", "512", "640", "768", "896",
"1024", "1152", "1280", "1408", "1536", "1664", "1792", "1920", "2048", "hw".
Specifying "hw" means that the maximum vector length supported by the platform
will be used.
Please be aware that if a specific vector length is passed and its value is
above the maximum vector length supported by the platform, an error will be
raised.

=back

=over 4

=item B<llc_colors=[ "RANGE", "RANGE", ...]>

Specify the Last Level Cache (LLC) color configuration for the guest.
B<RANGE> can be either a single color value or a hypen-separated closed
interval of colors (such as "0-4").

=item B<nr_spis="NR_SPIS">

An optional integer parameter specifying the number of SPIs (Shared
Peripheral Interrupts) to allocate for the domain. Max is 960 for regular SPIs
or 5088 for eSPIs (Extended SPIs). The eSPIs includes an additional 1024 SPIs
from the eSPI range (4096 to 5119) if the hardware supports extended SPIs
(GICv3.1+) and CONFIG_GICV3_ESPI is enabled. If the `nr_spis` parameter is not
specified, the value calculated by the toolstack will be used for the domain.
Otherwise, the value specified by the `nr_spis` parameter will be used. The
number of SPIs should match the highest interrupt ID that will be assigned to
the domain.

=item B<trap_unmapped_accesses=BOOLEAN>

An Optional boolean parameter that configures handling of accesses to unmapped
address ranges. If enabled, guest accesses will trap. If disabled, guest
accesses will read all bits as ones, e.g 0xFFFFFFFF for a 32bit access and
writes will be ignored.

This option is only implemented for Arm where the default is enabled.

=item B<arm_sci="ARM_SCI_STRING">

Set ARM_SCI specific options for the guest. ARM SCI is System
Control Protocol allows domain to manage various functions that are provided
by HW platform firmware.

B<ARM_SCI_STRING> is a comma separated list of C<KEY=VALUE> settings,
from the following list:

=over 4

=item B<type=STRING>

Specifies an ARM SCI type for the guest.

=over 4

=item B<none>

Don't allow guest to use ARM SCI if present on the platform. This is the
default value.

=item B<scmi_smc>

Enables ARM SCMI SMC support for the guest by enabling SCMI over SMC calls
forwarding from domain to the EL3 firmware (like Trusted Firmware-A) with a
single SCMI OSPM agent support.
Should be used together with B<scmi-smc-passthrough> Xen command line
option.

=back

=back

=back

=head3 x86

=over 4

=item B<mca_caps=[ "CAP", "CAP", ... ]>

(HVM only) Enable MCA capabilities besides default ones enabled
by Xen hypervisor for the HVM domain. "CAP" can be one in the
following list:

=over 4

=item B<"lmce">

Intel local MCE

=item B<default>

No MCA capabilities in above list are enabled.

=back

=item B<msr_relaxed=BOOLEAN>

The "msr_relaxed" boolean is an interim option, and defaults to false.

In Xen 4.15, the default behaviour for unhandled MSRs has been changed,
to avoid leaking host data into guests, and to avoid breaking guest
logic which uses #GP probing to identify the availability of MSRs.

However, this new stricter behaviour has the possibility to break
guests, and a more 4.14-like behaviour can be selected by setting this
option.

If using this option is necessary to fix an issue, please report a bug.

=back

=head1 SEE ALSO

=over 4

=item L<xl(1)>

=item L<xl.conf(5)>

=item L<xlcpupool.cfg(5)>

=item L<xl-disk-configuration(5)>

=item L<xl-network-configuration(5)>

=item L<xen-tscmode(7)>

=back

=head1 FILES

F</etc/xen/NAME.cfg>
F<@XEN_DUMP_DIR@/NAME>

=head1 BUGS

This document may contain items which require further
documentation. Patches to improve incomplete items (or any other item)
are gratefully received on the xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org mailing
list. Please see L<https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Submitting_Xen_Project_Patches> for
information on how to submit a patch to Xen.

