=head1 NAME

xl.cfg - XL Domain Configuration File Syntax

=head1 SYNOPSIS

 /etc/xen/xldomain

=head1 DESCRIPTION

To create a VM (a domain in Xen terminology, sometimes called a guest)
with xl requires the provision of a domain config file.  Typically
these live in `/etc/xen/DOMAIN.cfg` where DOMAIN is the name of the
domain.

=head1 SYNTAX

A domain config file consists of a series of C<KEY=VALUE> pairs.

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

A value C<VALUE> is one of:

=over 4

=item B<"STRING">

A string, surrounded by either single or double quotes.

=item B<NUMBER>

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

=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<VALUES> of the above types. Lists are homogeneous and are
not nested.

=back

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

=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<builder="generic">

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

=back

=head2 Global Options

The following options apply to guests of any type.

=over 4

=item B<uuid="UUID">

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

=item B<vncviewer=BOOLEAN>

Automatically spawn a vncviewer when creating/restoring a guest

=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. At start of day if
`vcpus=N` is less than `maxvcpus=M` then the first `N` vcpus will be
created online and the remainder will be offline.

=item B<cpus="CPU-LIST">

List of which cpus the guest is allowed to use. By default xl will pick
some cpus on its own (see below). A C<CPU-LIST> 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.

=item ["2", "3"] (or [2, 3])

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 cpu #3 of the host.

=back

If this option is not specified, libxl automatically tries to place the new
domain on the host's NUMA nodes (provided the host has more than one NUMA
node) by pinning it to the cpus of those nodes. A heuristic approach is
utilized with the goals of maximizing performance for the domain and, at
the same time, achieving efficient utilization of the host's CPUs and RAM.

=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, credit2 and sedf 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 in 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 upper cap.
Honoured by the credit and credit2 schedulers.

=item B<period=NANOSECONDS>

The normal EDF scheduling usage in nanoseconds. This means every period
the domain gets cpu time defined in slice.
Honoured by the sedf scheduler.

=item B<slice=NANOSECONDS>

The normal EDF scheduling usage in nanoseconds. it defines the time 
a domain get every period time.
Honoured by the sedf scheduler.

=item B<latency=N>

Scaled period if domain is doing heavy I/O.
Honoured by the sedf scheduler.

=item B<extratime=BOOLEAN>

Flag for allowing domain to run in extra time.
Honoured by the sedf scheduler.

=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 or greater than 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.

=item B<on_poweroff="ACTION">

Specifies what should be done with the domain if it shuts itself down.
The C<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 `xl
destroy`.

=item B<coredump-destroy>

write a "coredump" of the domain to F</var/xen/dump/NAME> and then
destroy the domain.

=item B<coredump-restart>

write a "coredump" of the domain to F</var/xen/dump/NAME> and then
restart the domain.

=back

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

=item B<on_reboot="ACTION">

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

=item B<on_watchdog="ACTION">

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

=item B<on_crash="ACTION">

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

=item B<seclabel="LABEL">

Assign an XSM security label to this domain.

=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 they should map to.  See F<docs/misc/xl-disk-configuration.txt>.

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

Specifies the networking provision (both emulated network adapters,
and Xen virtual interfaces) to provided to the guest.  See
F<docs/misc/xl-network-configuration.markdown>.

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

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

This options does not control the emulated graphics card presented to
an HVM guest. See L<Emulated VGA Graphics Device> below for how to
configure the emulated device.

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

=over 4

=item C<vnc=BOOLEAN>

Allow access to the display via the VNC protocol.  This enables the
other VNC-related settings.  The default is to enable this.

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

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

=item C<vncdisplay=DISPLAYNUM>

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

=item C<vncunused=BOOLEAN>

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

=item C<vncpasswd="PASSWORD">

Specifies the password for the VNC server.

=item C<sdl=BOOLEAN>

Specifies that the display should be presented via an X window (using
Simple DirectMedia Layer). The default is to not enable this mode

=item C<opengl=BOOLEAN>

Enable OpenGL acceleration of the SDL display. Only effects machines
using C<device_model_version="qemu-xen-traditional"> and only if the
device-model was compiled with OpenGL support. Disabled by default.

=item C<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 L<Keymaps> below or consult the
L<qemu(1)> manpage. The default is B<en-us>.

=item C<display=XXX>

XXX written to xenstore backend for vfb but does not appear to be used
anywhere?

=item C<authority=XXX>

XXX written to xenstore backend for vfb but does not appear to be used
anywhere?

=back

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

Specifies the host PCI devices to passthrough to this guest. Each B<PCI_SPEC_STRING>
has the form C<[DDDD:]BB:DD.F[@VSLOT],KEY=VALUE,KEY=VALUE,...> where:

=over 4

=item B<DDDD:BB:DD.F>

identifies the PCI device from the host perspective in domain
(B<DDDD>), Bus (B<BB>), Device (B<DD>) and Function (B<F>) syntax. This is
the same scheme as used in the output of C<lspci> for the device in
question. Note: By default C<lspci> will omit the domain (B<DDDD>) if it
is zero and it is optional here also. You may specify the function
(B<F>) as B<*> to indicate all functions.

=item B<@VSLOT>

specifies the virtual device where the guest will see this
device. This is equivalent to the B<DD> which the guest sees. In a
guest B<DDDD> and B<BB> are C<0000:00>. XXX how does this really work?

=item B<KEY=VALUE>

Possible B<KEY>s are:

=over 4

=item B<msitranslate=BOOLEAN>

XXX

=item B<power_mgmt=BOOLEAN>

XXX

=item B<permissive=BOOLEAN>

(PV only) By default pciback only allows PV guests to write "known
safe" values into PCI config space.  But many devices require writes
to other areas of config space in order to operate properly.  This
tells the pciback driver to allow all writes to PCI config space of
this device by this domain.  This option should be enabled with
caution: it gives the guest much more control over the device, which
may have security or stability implications.  It is recommended to
enable this option only for trusted VMs under administrator control.

=back

=back

=item B<pci_permissive=BOOLEAN>

(PV only) Changes the default value of 'permissive' for all PCI
devices for this VM.  This can still be overridden on a per-device
basis. This option should be enabled with caution: it gives the guest
much more control over the device, which may have security or
stability implications.  It is recommended to enable this option only
for trusted VMs under administrator control.  See the "pci=" section
for more information on the "permissive" flag.

=back

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

=over 4

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

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

=back

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

=over 4

Allow a guest to access specific physical IRQs.

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

=back

=head2 Paravirtualised (PV) Guest Specific Options

The following options apply only to Paravirtual guests.

=over 4

=item B<kernel="PATHNAME">

Load the specified file as the kernel image.  Either B<kernel> or
B<bootloader> must be specified for PV guests.

=item B<ramdisk="PATHNAME">

Load the specified file as the ramdisk.

=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.

=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 (this second option is deprecated).

=item B<root="STRING">

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

=item B<extra="STRING">

Append B<STRING> to the kernel command line. Note: it is guest
specific what meaning this has).

=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 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 layed 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 dependant whether this
option is required, specifically it is required when using a mainline
Linux ("pvops") kernel. This option defaults to true if any PCI
passthrough devices are configured and false 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 HVM guests.

=head3 Boot Device

=over 4

=item B<boot=[c|d|n]>

Selects the emulated virtual device to boot from. Options are hard
disk (B<c>), cd-rom (B<d>) or network/PXE (B<n>). Multiple options can be
given and will be attempted in the order they are given. e.g. to boot
from cd-rom but fallback to the hard disk you can give B<dc>. The
default is B<cd>.

=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 case and 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.  Affects HVM guests only.  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 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. This is used by default
when device_model_version=qemu-xen-traditional. This is the only BIOS
option supported when device_model_version=qemu-xen-traditional. This is
the BIOS used by all previous Xen versions.

=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<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.

=item B<apic=BOOLEAN>

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. (X86 only)

=item B<nx=BOOLEAN>

Hides or exposes the No-eXecute capability. This allows a guest
Operating system to map pages such that they cannot be executed which
can enhance security. This options requires that PAE also be
enabled. (X86 only)

=item B<hpet=BOOLEAN>

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 (X86 only)

=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. This option is disabled by default. 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).

=back 

=head3 Guest Virtual Time Controls

=over 4

=item B<tsc_mode="MODE">


Specifies how the TSC (Time Stamp Counter) should be provided to the
guest (X86 only). Specifying this option as a number is
deprecated. Options are:

=over 4

=item B<"default">

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

=item B<"always_emulate">

Guest rdtsc/p always emulated at 1GHz (kernel and user). Guest rdtsc/p
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 always executed natively (no monotonicity/frequency
guarantees); guest rdtscp emulated at native frequency if unsupported
by h/w, else executed natively.

=item B<"native_paravirt">

Same as B<native>, except xen manages TSC_AUX register so guest can
determine when a restore/migration has occurred and assumes guest
obtains/uses pvclock-like mechanism to adjust for monotonicity and
frequency changes.

=back

=back

Please see F<docs/misc/tscmode.txt> for more information on this option.

=item B<localtime=BOOLEAN>

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

=item B<rtc_timeoffset=SECONDS>

Set the real time clock offset in seconds. 0 by default.

=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 L<http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/XenLinuxPVonHVMdrivers> and Microsoft
Windows L<http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/XenWindowsGplPv>.

=item B<viridian=BOOLEAN>

Turns on or off the exposure of MicroSoft Hyper-V (AKA viridian)
compatible enlightenments to the guest.  These can improve performance
of Microsoft Windows guests from Windows Vista and Windows 2008
onwards and setting this option for such guests is strongly
recommended. This option should be harmless for other versions of
Windows (although it won't give any benefit) and the majority of other
non-Windows OSes. However it is known to be incompatible with some
other Operating Systems and in some circumstance can prevent Xen's own
paravirtualisation interfaces for HVM guests from being used.

=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.
The default amount of video ram for stdvga is 8MB which is sufficient
for e.g. 1600x1200 at 32bpp and videoram option is currently working
only when using the qemu-xen-traditional device-model.

When using the emulated Cirrus graphics card (B<stdvga=0>)
the amount of video ram is fixed at 4MB which is sufficient
for 1024x768 at 32 bpp and videoram option is currently working
only when using the upstream qemu-xen device-model.

=item B<stdvga=BOOLEAN>

Select a standard VGA card with VBE (VESA BIOS Extensions) as the
emulated graphics device. The default is false which means to emulate
a Cirrus Logic GD5446 VGA card. 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.

=item B<vnc=BOOLEAN>

Allow access to the display via the VNC protocol.  This enables the
other VNC-related settings.  The default is to enable this.

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

Specifies the IP address, and optionally 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 search for a free TCP port to use.
The actual display used can be accessed with C<xl vncviewer>.

=item B<vncpasswd="PASSWORD">

Specifies the password for the VNC server.

=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 L<Keymaps> below of consult the
L<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 not to enable this mode.

=item B<opengl=BOOLEAN>

Enable OpenGL acceleration of the SDL display. Only effects machines
using B<device_model_version="qemu-xen-traditional"> and only if the
device-model was compiled with OpenGL support. Disabled by default.

=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">

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

=item B<spiceport=NUMBER>

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

=item B<spicetls_port=NUMBER>

Specify the secure port to listen on by the SPICE server if the SPICE
is enabled. At least one of the spiceport or spicetls_port must be
given if SPICE is enabled.  NB. the options depending on spicetls_port
have not been supported.

=item B<spicedisable_ticketing=BOOLEAN>

Enable client connection without password. The default is false. If
it's false (set to 0), spicepasswd must be set.

=item B<spicepasswd="PASSWORD">

Specify the ticket password which is used by a client for connection.

=item B<spiceagent_mouse=BOOLEAN>

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

=back

=head3 Miscellaneous Emulated Hardware

=over 4

=item B<serial=DEVICE>

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

=item B<soundhw=DEVICE>

Select the virtual sound card to expose to the guest. The valid
devices are defined by the device model configuration, please see the
L<qemu(1)> manpage for details. The default is not to export any sound
device.

=item B<usb=BOOLEAN>

Enables or disables a USB bus in the guest.

=item B<usbdevice=DEVICE>

Adds B<DEVICE> to the 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 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. XXX should/could
be a list of devices.

=back

=head3 Unclassified HVM Specific Options

These HVM specific options have not yet been documented or
classified. They almost certainly belong in a more appropriate
section.

=over 4

=item B<vpt_align=BOOLEAN>

Align the Virtual Platform Timer ??? XXX Reduces interrupts?

=item B<timer_mode=NUMBER>

Set mode for Virtual Timers XXX ??? should be an enum of particular
values. See C<HVM_PARAM_TIMER_MODE> in
F<xen/include/public/hvm/params.h>.

=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-traditional>

Use the device-model based upon the historical Xen fork of Qemu.  This
device-model is currently the default.

=item B<qemu-xen>

use the device-model merged into the upstream Qemu project.  This
device-model will become the default in a future version of Xen.

=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. The
binary provided here MUST be consistent with the
`device_model_version` which you have specified. You should not
normally need to specify this option.

=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 Unclassified General Options

These have not yet been fully documented or classified. They almost
certainly belong in a more appropriate section.

=over 4

=item B<gfx_passthru=BOOLEAN>

Enable graphics device PCI passthrough. This option makes the passthru
graphics card become primary graphics card in the VM, so the Qemu emulated
graphics adapter is disabled, and the VNC console for the VM won't 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 thru
physical graphics card.

Graphics card PCI device to passthru is chosen with B<pci> option,
exactly in the same way as normal Xen PCI device passthru/assignment is done.
Note that gfx_passthru doesn't do any kind of sharing
of the GPU, so you can only assign the GPU to one single VM at a time.

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

Enabling gfx_passthru option also copies the physical graphics card
video BIOS to the guest memory, and executes the VBIOS in the guest
to get the graphics card initialized.

Most graphics adapters require vendor specific tweaks for properly
working graphics passthru. See the XenVGAPassthroughTestedAdapters
L<http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/XenVGAPassthroughTestedAdapters>
wiki page for currently supported graphics cards for gfx_passthru.

gfx_passthru is currently only supported with the qemu-xen-traditional
device-model. Upstream qemu-xen device-model currently doesn't have
support for gfx_passthru.

Note that some graphics adapters (AMD/ATI cards, for example) don't
necessarily require gfx_passthru option, so you can use the normal
Xen PCI passthru to assign the graphics card as a secondary graphics card
to the VM. Qemu emulated graphics card stays as the primary graphics card,
and you get VNC output from the Qemu-emulated primary adapter.

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

=item B<nomigrate=BOOLEAN>

Disable migration of this domain.  This enables certain other features
which are incompatible with migration (currently certain TSC modes XXX
?).

=item B<pci_msitranslate=BOOLEAN>

XXX

=item B<pci_power_mgmt=BOOLEAN>

XXX

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

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

The libxl syntax is a comma separated list of key=value pairs, preceded by the
word "host". A few keys take a numerical value, all others take a single
character which describes what to do with the feature bit.

Possible values for a single feature bit:
  '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
  's' -> as 'k' but preserve across save/restore and migration (not implemented)

List of keys taking a value:
apicidsize brandid clflush family localapicid maxleaf model nc proccount procpkg
stepping

List of keys taking a character:
3dnow 3dnowext 3dnowprefetch abm acpi aes altmovcr8 apic avx clfsh cmov
cmplegacy cmpxchg16 cmpxchg8 cntxid dca de ds dscpl dtes64 est extapic f16c
ffxsr fma4 fpu fxsr htt hypervisor ia64 ibs lahfsahf lm lwp mca mce misalignsse
mmx mmxext monitor movbe msr mtrr nodeid nx osvw osxsave pae page1gb pat pbe
pclmulqdq pdcm pge popcnt pse pse36 psn rdtscp skinit smx ss sse sse2 sse3
sse4.1 sse4.2 sse4a ssse3 svm svm_decode svm_lbrv svm_npt svm_nrips
svm_pausefilt svm_tscrate svm_vmcbclean syscall sysenter tbm tm tm2 topoext tsc
vme vmx wdt x2apic xop xsave xtpr

The xend syntax is a list of values in the form of
'leafnum:register=bitstring,register=bitstring'
  "leafnum" is the requested function,
  "register" is the response register to modify
  "bitstring" represents all bits in the register, its length must be 32 chars.
  Each successive character represent a lesser-significant bit, possible values
  are listed above in the libxl section.

Example to hide two features from the guest: 'tm', which is bit #29 in EDX, and
'pni' (SSE3), which is bit #0 in ECX:

xend: [ '1:ecx=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx0,edx=xx0xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx' ]

libxl: 'host,tm=0,sse3=0'

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

=item B<acpi_s3=BOOLEAN>

XXX

=item B<acpi_s3=BOOLEAN>

XXX

=item B<nodes=XXX>

XXX

=item B<sched=XXX>

XXX

=item B<device_model=XXX>

XXX deprecated

=item B<vif2=XXX>

XXX deprecated

=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 L<qemu(1)> for more information.

=head1 SEE ALSO

=over 4

=item L<xl(1)>

=item F<xl-disk-configuration>

=item F<xl-network-configuration>

=back

=head1 FILES

F</etc/xen/NAME.cfg>
F</var/xen/dump/NAME>
F<docs/misc/tscmode.txt>

=head1 BUGS

This document is a work in progress and contains items which require
further documentation and which are generally incomplete (marked with
XXX).  However all options are included here whether or not they are
fully documented.

Patches to improve incomplete items (or any other item) would be
gratefully received on the xen-devel@lists.xen.org mailing
list. Please see L<http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/SubmittingXenPatches> for
information on how to submit a patch to Xen.

