https://nalar.dev/tags/virtualization/ Recent content in Virtualization on Nalar Hugo en-us Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://nalar.dev/iommu-translates-device-dma-addresses-and-limits-memory-access/ Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0700 https://nalar.dev/iommu-translates-device-dma-addresses-and-limits-memory-access/ <p>High-speed devices often move data without asking the CPU to copy every byte. Direct memory access, or DMA, lets a device read from or write to system memory through addresses supplied by software. That speed also creates a control problem: unrestricted DMA could let a faulty or compromised device touch memory that belongs to the kernel or another workload.</p> <p>An input-output memory management unit, commonly called an IOMMU, sits on the device side of this path. It translates device-visible DMA addresses into physical memory addresses and checks whether the requested access is permitted.</p>