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-rw-r--r--docs/interop/vhost-user.rst2
-rw-r--r--docs/system/device-emulation.rst90
-rw-r--r--docs/system/devices/ivshmem.rst (renamed from docs/system/ivshmem.rst)0
-rw-r--r--docs/system/devices/net.rst (renamed from docs/system/net.rst)0
-rw-r--r--docs/system/devices/nvme.rst (renamed from docs/system/nvme.rst)0
-rw-r--r--docs/system/devices/usb.rst (renamed from docs/system/usb.rst)0
-rw-r--r--docs/system/devices/vhost-user.rst59
-rw-r--r--docs/system/devices/virtio-pmem.rst (renamed from docs/system/virtio-pmem.rst)0
-rw-r--r--docs/system/index.rst6
9 files changed, 152 insertions, 5 deletions
diff --git a/docs/interop/vhost-user.rst b/docs/interop/vhost-user.rst
index d6085f7045..7fc693521e 100644
--- a/docs/interop/vhost-user.rst
+++ b/docs/interop/vhost-user.rst
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+.. _vhost_user_proto:
+
 ===================
 Vhost-user Protocol
 ===================
diff --git a/docs/system/device-emulation.rst b/docs/system/device-emulation.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..7afcfd8064
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/system/device-emulation.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+.. _device-emulation:
+
+Device Emulation
+----------------
+
+QEMU supports the emulation of a large number of devices from
+peripherals such network cards and USB devices to integrated systems
+on a chip (SoCs). Configuration of these is often a source of
+confusion so it helps to have an understanding of some of the terms
+used to describes devices within QEMU.
+
+Common Terms
+~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Device Front End
+================
+
+A device front end is how a device is presented to the guest. The type
+of device presented should match the hardware that the guest operating
+system is expecting to see. All devices can be specified with the
+``--device`` command line option. Running QEMU with the command line
+options ``--device help`` will list all devices it is aware of. Using
+the command line ``--device foo,help`` will list the additional
+configuration options available for that device.
+
+A front end is often paired with a back end, which describes how the
+host's resources are used in the emulation.
+
+Device Buses
+============
+
+Most devices will exist on a BUS of some sort. Depending on the
+machine model you choose (``-M foo``) a number of buses will have been
+automatically created. In most cases the BUS a device is attached to
+can be inferred, for example PCI devices are generally automatically
+allocated to the next free address of first PCI bus found. However in
+complicated configurations you can explicitly specify what bus
+(``bus=ID``) a device is attached to along with its address
+(``addr=N``).
+
+Some devices, for example a PCI SCSI host controller, will add an
+additional buses to the system that other devices can be attached to.
+A hypothetical chain of devices might look like:
+
+  --device foo,bus=pci.0,addr=0,id=foo
+  --device bar,bus=foo.0,addr=1,id=baz
+
+which would be a bar device (with the ID of baz) which is attached to
+the first foo bus (foo.0) at address 1. The foo device which provides
+that bus is itself is attached to the first PCI bus (pci.0).
+
+
+Device Back End
+===============
+
+The back end describes how the data from the emulated device will be
+processed by QEMU. The configuration of the back end is usually
+specific to the class of device being emulated. For example serial
+devices will be backed by a ``--chardev`` which can redirect the data
+to a file or socket or some other system. Storage devices are handled
+by ``--blockdev`` which will specify how blocks are handled, for
+example being stored in a qcow2 file or accessing a raw host disk
+partition. Back ends can sometimes be stacked to implement features
+like snapshots.
+
+While the choice of back end is generally transparent to the guest,
+there are cases where features will not be reported to the guest if
+the back end is unable to support it.
+
+Device Pass Through
+===================
+
+Device pass through is where the device is actually given access to
+the underlying hardware. This can be as simple as exposing a single
+USB device on the host system to the guest or dedicating a video card
+in a PCI slot to the exclusive use of the guest.
+
+
+Emulated Devices
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+.. toctree::
+   :maxdepth: 1
+
+   devices/ivshmem.rst
+   devices/net.rst
+   devices/nvme.rst
+   devices/usb.rst
+   devices/vhost-user.rst
+   devices/virtio-pmem.rst
diff --git a/docs/system/ivshmem.rst b/docs/system/devices/ivshmem.rst
index b03a48afa3..b03a48afa3 100644
--- a/docs/system/ivshmem.rst
+++ b/docs/system/devices/ivshmem.rst
diff --git a/docs/system/net.rst b/docs/system/devices/net.rst
index 4b2640c448..4b2640c448 100644
--- a/docs/system/net.rst
+++ b/docs/system/devices/net.rst
diff --git a/docs/system/nvme.rst b/docs/system/devices/nvme.rst
index bff72d1c24..bff72d1c24 100644
--- a/docs/system/nvme.rst
+++ b/docs/system/devices/nvme.rst
diff --git a/docs/system/usb.rst b/docs/system/devices/usb.rst
index eeab78dcfb..eeab78dcfb 100644
--- a/docs/system/usb.rst
+++ b/docs/system/devices/usb.rst
diff --git a/docs/system/devices/vhost-user.rst b/docs/system/devices/vhost-user.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..86128114fa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/system/devices/vhost-user.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+.. _vhost_user:
+
+vhost-user back ends
+--------------------
+
+vhost-user back ends are way to service the request of VirtIO devices
+outside of QEMU itself. To do this there are a number of things
+required.
+
+vhost-user device
+===================
+
+These are simple stub devices that ensure the VirtIO device is visible
+to the guest. The code is mostly boilerplate although each device has
+a ``chardev`` option which specifies the ID of the ``--chardev``
+device that connects via a socket to the vhost-user *daemon*.
+
+vhost-user daemon
+=================
+
+This is a separate process that is connected to by QEMU via a socket
+following the :ref:`vhost_user_proto`. There are a number of daemons
+that can be built when enabled by the project although any daemon that
+meets the specification for a given device can be used.
+
+Shared memory object
+====================
+
+In order for the daemon to access the VirtIO queues to process the
+requests it needs access to the guest's address space. This is
+achieved via the ``memory-backend-file`` or ``memory-backend-memfd``
+objects. A reference to a file-descriptor which can access this object
+will be passed via the socket as part of the protocol negotiation.
+
+Currently the shared memory object needs to match the size of the main
+system memory as defined by the ``-m`` argument.
+
+Example
+=======
+
+First start you daemon.
+
+.. parsed-literal::
+
+  $ virtio-foo --socket-path=/var/run/foo.sock $OTHER_ARGS
+
+The you start your QEMU instance specifying the device, chardev and
+memory objects.
+
+.. parsed-literal::
+
+  $ |qemu_system| \\
+      -m 4096 \\
+      -chardev socket,id=ba1,path=/var/run/foo.sock \\
+      -device vhost-user-foo,chardev=ba1,$OTHER_ARGS \\
+      -object memory-backend-memfd,id=mem,size=4G,share=on \\
+      -numa node,memdev=mem \\
+        ...
+
diff --git a/docs/system/virtio-pmem.rst b/docs/system/devices/virtio-pmem.rst
index c82ac06731..c82ac06731 100644
--- a/docs/system/virtio-pmem.rst
+++ b/docs/system/devices/virtio-pmem.rst
diff --git a/docs/system/index.rst b/docs/system/index.rst
index fda4b1b705..64a424ae99 100644
--- a/docs/system/index.rst
+++ b/docs/system/index.rst
@@ -11,15 +11,12 @@ or Hypervisor.Framework.
 
    quickstart
    invocation
+   device-emulation
    keys
    mux-chardev
    monitor
    images
-   net
    virtio-net-failover
-   usb
-   nvme
-   ivshmem
    linuxboot
    generic-loader
    guest-loader
@@ -30,7 +27,6 @@ or Hypervisor.Framework.
    gdb
    managed-startup
    cpu-hotplug
-   virtio-pmem
    pr-manager
    targets
    security