PCI Passthrough?

Status
Not open for further replies.

tophee

Explorer
Joined
Oct 27, 2011
Messages
71
Hi,
Is it possible to give a jail access to a pci card? I've done some searching and I believe it it might not be possible but I thought I'd ask in the definitive place.

In my particular instance I want to get my Mythtv jail to access my pci tuner card.

Thanks in advance

Chris
 

jgreco

Resident Grinch
Joined
May 29, 2011
Messages
18,680
No, it doesn't work that way. PCI passthrough is a virtualization technology that gives a VM direct access to a hardware device, which is then abstracted by the OS within that VM.

Generally speaking, UNIX does not allow direct access to a card. All access to system devices runs through the kernel, which provides drivers and controls access to the card. If the PCI tuner card has a driver that either exists in FreeNAS (probably not) or maybe could be loaded (quite possibly) then you could get access to the device through its driver within the jail, yes.

That's probably what you were trying to ask.
 

tophee

Explorer
Joined
Oct 27, 2011
Messages
71
Hi jgreco. I think that is probably exactly what I am trying to ask. I will do some more reading and get back to you.
 

jgreco

Resident Grinch
Joined
May 29, 2011
Messages
18,680
Let us know more about what driver is needed ...
 

tophee

Explorer
Joined
Oct 27, 2011
Messages
71
I think i know which driver it is. Think its the cx88 driver.

The card is a hauppauge nova - s2 - hd which uses the same firmware as the win tv hvr-4000, if memory serves.
 

cyberjock

Inactive Account
Joined
Mar 25, 2012
Messages
19,525
One of our IRC regulars tried to get something like 5 different cards to work on FreeNAS. He gave up because it's cost him too much money to spend any more on another card just to experiment (and ultimately fail to get to work) with FreeNAS.

You are definitely welcome to continue in your effort, but be aware that others have tried and failed. :(
 

Middling

Dabbler
Joined
Mar 3, 2012
Messages
40
Going the Sat>IP way may be an easier/better solution. I don't know if MythTV supports it yet but i know TVheadend does.
 

tophee

Explorer
Joined
Oct 27, 2011
Messages
71
Hi Cyberjock, yiu might well be right about the likelihood of failure. I will try and give it a go, though I'm not going to spend any money on it. If i can get it to work, great, if not I've enough spare hardware to build a separate machine to run a mythtv backend.

Middling - thanks for the suggestion, but as I say - I plan only to reuse old parts and not lighten my wallet on this.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top