VMI 2.0 Device Related Information

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Virtual Machine Interface 2.1

In VMI 2.0, chains and the devices attached to these chains, are specified via a XML version 1.0 compliant specification file. The location of the specification file is given via the environment variable VMI_SPECFILE. The specification file include device blocks that contain information relevant to loading and initializing the device. The way devices are layered within a chain are specified using chain blocks. The XML subsystem parses and validates the specification file for consistency. VMI's Chain and Device Manager Subsystems create and load devices into the process.

The environment variable VMI_SPECFILE specifies the location of the VMI specification file (specfile). This location can either be a path on a locally mounted file system or some remote location specified using HTTP or any of the other protocols such as HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, GOPHER, TELNET and LDAP. Currently the only tested protocol for loading devices over the network is HTTP. Similarly, the location of the device file specified inside the specfile can be either a path in a locally mounted file system or some remote location where the device file is accessible through one of the protocols mentioned above. VMI's Device Manager uses the CURL library for downloading devices over the network. Please refer to the CURL site for further info.

To see examples of specfiles used with VMI's Infiniband, Myrinet and TCP devices, click on the links below. You can also use these specfiles with your VMI programs just by setting your VMI_SPECFILE environment variable as URL of any of these files. Note that the binary device files that these specfiles point to are located on VMI's server. So the device will be loaded over the network using the HTTP protocol if you use any of these specfiles.

For Infiniband specfile, click here.

For Myrinet specfile, click here.

For TCP specfile, click here.