vfio-user — QEMU documentation

# vfio-user

QEMU includes a `vfio-user` client. The `vfio-user` specification allows for implementing (PCI) devices in userspace outside of QEMU; it is similar to `vhost-user` in this respect (see vhost-user back ends), but can emulate arbitrary PCI devices, not just `virtio`. Whereas `vfio` is handled by the host kernel, `vfio-user`, while similar in implementation, is handled entirely in userspace.

For example, SPDK includes a virtual PCI NVMe controller implementation; by setting up a `vfio-user` UNIX socket between QEMU and SPDK, a VM can send NVMe I/O to the SPDK process.

Presuming a suitable `vfio-user` server has opened a socket at `/tmp/vfio-user.sock`, a device can be configured with for example:

    --device '{"driver": "vfio-user-pci","socket": {"path": "/tmp/vfio-user.sock", "type": "unix"}}'

See libvfio-user for further information.