Today Qumranet released the first release of block and network drivers for Linux guests running on a kvm host. The drivers are intended for guest kernels 2.6.18-2.6.24. Newer kernels include the drivers; older kernels may not work. kvm-61 or later is needed in the host. Network throughput is around 1 Gbit/sec; latency is currently a less than stellar 0.3 msec. Both these figures will be improved in the future. To use, download the drivers into the guest (using one of the emulated network cards), unpack the package, and type

  make
  sudo make install

You will need the kernel development package from your distribution installed. To use the drivers, reboot with

qemu-system-x86_64 .... -net nic,model=virtio 

instead of the usual setting, and 'modprobe virtio_net' to load the module. Similarly use

qemu-system-x86_64 ... -drive ...,if=virtio

for the block device, and the corresponding virtio_blk.ko module. The paravirtual network binary drivers for windows is expected to be released very soon. It should also be noted that using the emulated e1000 nic is another option which provides very good performance, almost as good as paravirtual drivers and can be used with any guest. To use this emulated device, start qemu/kvm with the -net nic,model=e1000 option.

qemu-system-x86_64 ... -net nic,model=e1000

To see related post on using the emulated e1000, click here.

Download Linux Drivers (rel 1) here