Skip to content

Add a virtio-net device driver #189

Open

Description

@cellrishi-code

Summary

Provide a paravirtualized network interface using virtio-net so Rustalis can exchange packets in QEMU without depending on a physical NIC driver.

Scope

  • Discover supported virtio-net PCI devices through the existing PCI/driver registry.
  • Negotiate required virtio features and configure receive/transmit virtqueues.
  • Validate descriptor chains and packet lengths before accessing buffers.
  • Connect the driver to the network-device and packet-buffer abstractions.
  • Define queue reset and device-error handling.

Acceptance criteria

  • Feature negotiation rejects unsupported required features cleanly.
  • Host tests cover descriptor validation and queue bookkeeping.
  • QEMU integration instructions describe the required network device configuration.
  • RX/TX failures are reported without corrupting queue state or leaking buffers.

Engineering constraints

  • Keep the kernel Rust-first, no_std, and x86_64-compatible.
  • Integrate with existing Rustalis subsystem interfaces; do not create a parallel implementation.
  • Document ownership, initialization order, failure behavior, and any architecture-specific unsafe invariants.
  • Add host-side tests for hardware-independent logic and QEMU coverage for hardware paths where practical.
  • Do not claim verification that has not actually been run.

Activity

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    No labels
    No labels

    Projects

    No projects

      Milestone

      No milestone

      Relationships

      None yet

      Development

      No branches or pull requests

      Issue actions