How to map host PCI device to virtualbox?

Question

In a virtual box it is possible to map host's USB device.

But is it not possible to map host's PCI device to guest system?

How is it possible to connect (map) a PCI device to guest OS?

Our host operating system is Ubuntu 8.04 and guest is Windows NT4.

Solution

VirtualBox can in fact pass PCI devices through in recent versions, though it takes some special configuration and certain limitations apply. In short, you need the following support on the host to make it even possible:

• IOMMU hardware support (VT-d from Intel or AMD-Vi)
• BIOS that has the IOMMU support enabled
• The guest machine needs Nested Paging enabled
• Modern enough Linux kernel (version 2.6.31 or later) with IOMMU support compiled in
• VirtualBox 4.1.x or later (not sure exactly when support was added)

If you have met those requirements you can use the VBoxManage modifyvm --pciattach and VBoxManage modifyvm --pcidetach to enable or disable a specific device for a given VM.

Please read the relevant section of the user manual for more complete info: https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#pcipassthrough

Comments

[user2426303]

I know that it is not possible, but i want to know why ?, virtual box is open source, so why it is not possible to forward PCI devices?

[user2345703]

From what I understand, it's an OS limitation, complicated by the PCI standard. I believe VMWare has a virtualization solution that supports this to a limited degree when using Xen(a hypervisor).