Subject: Re: fbnic qemu is open source

From: Jakub Kicinski <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2026 14:34:46 -0700

On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 12:41:39 -0700 Mina Almasry wrote:
> > No plans at this stage to upstream it to QEMU because TBH I don't
> > expect that QEMU would care to carry random HW emulation drivers.
> >
> > Sorry if the announcement is a bit self-serving but folks expressed
> > interest off list in being able to test the queue API and zero-copy
> > Rx without real HW so I thought it's relevant.  
> 
> Wow, very cool! (Sorry I missed this announcement initially) I'm a bit
> of a noob but I'm a bit surprised a 'real' driver can work no qemu
> with a bit of magic.
> 
> Is fbnic-on-qemu about as feature-rich as fbnic-on-real-hardware? Do
> most of what it can do on real hardware it can do on qemu, or is it
> just really zerocopy that fully works?

We implement the driver and QEMU side by side pre-silicon so the QEMU
should cover what the driver can do. Keep in mind it's a pretty simple
NIC, even "in the flesh".