Getting VIA Padlock hardware encryption to work inside kvm guest

Hi everyone,

i am trying to set up a virtualized server on Zotac Z-Box with VIAs Nano X2 processor.

I have set up a host system based upon the current debian wheezy testing with kernel 3.2.0-4-amd64 and qemu 1.1.2+dfsg-2 and have succeeded to create virtual guests for debian and windows.

Now i am trying to get the VIA Padlick hardware encryption working inside the guests.

As the page http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Tuning_KVM suggest, i tried to enable the host cpu feature for the guests with "qemu -cpu host", but i get "Unable to find x86 CPU definition". With "qemu -cpu ?" i get a list of supported cpus, but host is not part of it. When i try "qemu -cpu qemu64,+ace,+ace_en" i get "CPU feature ace not found" and "CPU feature ace_en not found".

As the page https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/702631/ suggests, support for the VIA Padlock CPUID and flags should already be there.

I do not understand why qemu has no definition for the "host" cpu, can anybody please help me with this problem or at least point me somewhere for more information?

Sincerely,
Manuel Andreu

Hi Manuel,

i just switched from qemu-kvm 1.2.0 to qemu 1.3.0
and got the same issue.
You just have to set the parameter -enable-kvm to set -cpu host.

greets
Stefan Ahrens