Single GPU passthrough with QEMU and VFIO

Windows 10 1709

ToC

1. What this does
2. What you need
3. My system
4. Configure
5. About peripherals
6. Known problems
7. TODO

What this does

In one command it kills X, frees the GPU from drivers and console, detaches the GPU from the host, starts the VM with the GPU, waits until the VM is off, reattaches the GPU to the host and starts lightdm.

What you need

• An IOMMU enabled motherboard. Check your motherboard manual.
• CPU support for AMD-v/VT-x and AMD-Vi/VT-d (AMD/Intel). And virtualization support enabled on BIOS.
• One GPU that supports UEFI and its BIOS. All GPUs from 2012 and later should support this.
• QEMU, OVMF UEFI and VIRTIO drivers for Windows.
• [Optional] HDD only for Windows

My system

                                                [Hardware]
                                                 CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600
                                         Motherboard: Gigabyte AB350M-Gaming 3 rev1.1
                                    Motherboard BIOS: F23d
                                                 RAM: 16GB
                                                 GPU: Gigabyte Nvidia GeForce GTX 770
                                           GPU model: GV-N770OC-2GD
                                            GPU BIOS: 80.04.C3.00.0F
                                        GPU codename: GK104

                                                [Software]
                                        Linux Distro: ArchLinux
                                        Linux Kernel: 4.17.11 vanilla
                                       Nvidia divers: 396.45-2
                                        QEMU version: 2.12.0-2
                                        OVMF version: r24021

                                                 [Guests]
                                             Windows: Windows 10 Pro 1709 x64
                                               MacOS: MacOS High Sierra 10.13.3

Configure

1. Clone this repository

git clone https://gitlab.com/YuriAlek/vfio.git

2. Enable vfio at boot. Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf.

MODULES=(... vfio_pci vfio vfio_iommu_type1 vfio_virqfd ...)
HOOKS=(... modconf ...)

3. Regenerate the initramfs

sudo mkinitcpio -p linux

4. Reboot the system to load the vfio drivers

5. [Optional] Download virtio drivers

wget -o virtio-win.iso "https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win.iso"

6. Get the GPU BIOS Source. You can download the bios. If you do so, download a HEX editor and skip to step 4.
7. Boot the host into Windows.
8. Download and install GPU-Z.
9. Download and install a HEX editor.
10. Open GPU-Z and backup the GPU BIOS. Right next to the Bios Version; in my case 80.04.C3.00.0F, there is an icon for backup. A file named GK104.rom will be created. There is also a way of doing it in Linux but it did not work for me.
11. Open the ROM (GK104.rom) in the HEX editor.
12. After a bunch of 00 there is a 55 or U in HEX, delete everything before the 55, and save. I strongly recommend not to overwrite the original ROM.

7. Get the iommu groups needed for the VM (GPU, GPU audio and USB controller)

chmod +x scripts/iommu.sh
bash scripts/iommu.sh
-------------------------
# GPU
IOMMU group 13
	  06:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GK104 [GeForce GTX 770] [10de:1184] (rev a1)
	  06:00.1 Audio device [0403]: NVIDIA Corporation GK104 HDMI Audio Controller [10de:0e0a] (rev a1)
# USB 3.0 Controller
IOMMU group 16
	  07:00.3 USB controller [0c03]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] USB 3.0 Host controller [1022:145f]
# SATA Controller
IOMMU group 18
	  08:00.2 SATA controller [0106]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SATA Controller [AHCI mode] [1022:7901] (rev 51)

8. [Optional] Create the image for the VM. Only if not using a physical hard drive.

qemu-img create -f raw windows.raw 60G

9. Edit the script windows-install.sh and windows.sh to convenience. Things you may have to edit:
10. PCI devices
11. User
12. Location of HDD, ISO, vBIOS and OVMF image
13. The Desktop Environment, Display Manager, Window Manager, etc.
14. QEMU options like RAM and CPU
15. Kernel modules

10. Start the VM

sudo scripts/windows-install.sh

11. When installing Windows, in the section Where do you want to install Windows? there will be no hard drives to install to; to fix it:

12. Load driver

13. Browse

14. CD Drive (E:) virtio-win-0.1.1

15. vioscsi

16. w10

17. amd64

18. ok

19. Load driver Red Hat VirtIO SCSI pass-through controller (E:\vioscsi\w10\amd64\vioscsi.inf)

20. Next

21. Select the Unallocated Space

22. Proceed as normal.

23. Let Windows find the drivers for the GPU (if Windows has network) or download the updated ones from NVIDIA.

24. Once installed Windows, run the VM with

sudo scripts/windows.sh

For the sake of convenience

sudo ln -s scripts/qemu@.service /usr/lib/systemd/system/

alias windows="sudo systemctl start qemu@windows.service"
alias macos="sudo systemctl start qemu@macos-hs.service"

To start the Windows VM

windows

To start the MacOS VM

macos

About peripherals

For audio I use an USB sound card.

For internet I use network.sh

For USB I simply passthrough an USB 3.0 controller.

Known problems

Race condition

There is something somewhere that makes it crash. That's why there is so many sleep

Root

QEMU should never be run as root. If you must launch it in a script as root, you should use the -runas option to make QEMU drop root privileges.

MacOS does not like USB hubs, therefore anything connected to a hub will be ignored by MacOS

TODO

• Unbind GPU without virsh
• Update macos script
• Network
• Audio
• IOMMU
• Troubleshooting
• Extract the vBIOS in Linux
• Try if is necessary to edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
• How to edit the windows.sh script
• Fix the race condition
• Create scripts for install and use (Without DVD images)
• Try to run the VM as user
• ???

[windows 10 screenshot]: /Screenshots/Windows 10 QEMU single GPU info.png [macos screenshot]: /Screenshots/MacOS High Sierra 10.13.3 single GPU info.png