I/O domain vs service domain – quick recap

I/O domain

Owns physical PCI root complexes and HBAs; has direct hardware access.

Service domain

Exports virtual disks (vds) and networks (vsw) to guests using physical devices from I/O domain.

Common layouts

Small setups: primary = control + service + I/O.
HA setups: dedicated I/O/service domains for redundancy.

Basic I/O and service domain configuration – examples

1. Assign a PCIe root complex to an I/O domain

Example: move a PCI nexus from primary to io-domain.

terminal — io domain

ldoms-lab

# List PCI root complexes
[root@primary ~]# ldm list-io
 
NAME                                      TYPE   BUS      DOMAIN
pci_0                                     BUS    pci@500  primary
pci_1                                     BUS    pci@600  primary
 
# Create I/O domain
[root@primary ~]# ldm add-domain io-domain1
 
# Assign pci_1 to io-domain1
[root@primary ~]# ldm set-io pci_1 io-domain1
 
# Set resources
[root@primary ~]# ldm set-vcpu 4 io-domain1
[root@primary ~]# ldm set-memory 8G io-domain1
 
[root@primary ~]# ldm bind io-domain1
[root@primary ~]# ldm start io-domain1

2. Create virtual disk service on service domain

vds provides virtual disks to guests.

terminal — io domain

ldoms-lab

# On primary or dedicated service domain:
[root@primary ~]# ldm add-vds primary-vds0 primary
 
# Add backend device to vds
[root@primary ~]# ldm add-vdsdev /dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/ldoms/ldg1-root     ldg1-root@primary-vds0
 
# Add vdisk to guest
[root@primary ~]# ldm add-vdisk vdisk0 ldg1-root@primary-vds0 ldg1

3. Create virtual switch on I/O/service domain

vsw bridges physical NIC to virtual NICs.

terminal — io domain

ldoms-lab

# Create vsw on net0
[root@primary ~]# ldm add-vsw net-dev=net0 primary-vsw0 primary
 
# Add vnet to guest
[root@primary ~]# ldm add-vnet vnet0 primary-vsw0 ldg1