ath11k and vfio-pci support

[James Prestwood]

Hi Kalle,

On 1/19/24 9:57 AM, Kalle Valo wrote:
> James Prestwood <prestwoj at gmail.com> writes:
>
>>> Sorry I should have made it clear:
>>> step1: start qemu and load ath11k without changing anything, then
>>> you get those errors;
>>> step2: keep qemu running and ath11k there, don't unload it. Then
>>> check lspci output in host to get the MSI vector.
>>> step3: Back in qemu, hard code MSI vector to the one you get in
>>> step2, then rebuild and reload ath11k.
>> Thank you for the clarification, this worked like a charm!
> Very nice, huge thanks to Baochen for finding the workaround! James, let
> us know how it works for you in the long run. This would definitely help
> automating ath11k testing so I'm very interested about this.

Yes thank you Baochen!

You mean using PCI pass-through? Yes, its immensely useful for testing 
kernel changes. No swapping host kernels/reboots and you can build a 
very minimal kernel, mine takes ~10 min to build initially then 
iterative changes take ~10 seconds.

We have also integrated this into IWD's autotest framework so you can, 
in theory, run tests you normally run using mac80211_hwsim but using 
real hardware (assuming you aren't needing to modify frames). I did at 
one point have a system set up with 4-5 wifi cards and could run python 
tests against them, bring up an AP, connect, etc. It was pretty neat.

Thanks,

James