linux-drivers/
drivers/vfio/pci/qat

Intel QuickAssist (QAT) Gen4/Gen6 VFIO live-migration driver

Provides VFIO live-migration support for the SR-IOV virtual functions exposed by Intel's QuickAssist Technology (QAT) cryptography and compression accelerators built into 4th Gen Xeon, 5th Gen Xeon, and Xeon 6 server CPUs. It lets cloud and virtualization hosts pass QAT acceleration into guest VMs and migrate those guests between hosts without losing the accelerator state.

keep conf=0.89 deploy=low replacement=none subsystem=vfio category=virtualization
89%

recommendation

It should stay because it is an actively maintained, recently added piece of server virtualization plumbing for hardware Intel still ships. Merged in April 2024 and extended in August and November 2025 to cover newer QAT 6xxx silicon, it lets hypervisors live-migrate VMs that pass through QAT virtual functions on 4th and 5th generation Xeon and Xeon 6 systems. Deployment is narrow today, but the trajectory is growth, not removal.

repository signals

3 files
704 source lines
10 commits, 5y
+729 / −10 lines added / removed, 5y
8 authors, 5y
monthly commits · 2021-04-21 → 2026-04-21 · 10 total · active in 7/61 months
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sources

  1. lwn.net

    The driver was introduced in April 2024 specifically to provide VFIO live-migration support for Intel QAT SR-IOV virtual functions.

  2. git.kernel.org

    Upstream added Intel QAT 6xxx virtual-function support in August 2025, showing the driver is still expanding to newer hardware rather than being retired.

  3. git.kernel.org

    The driver received substantive VFIO API maintenance in November 2025, indicating active upstream upkeep and no visible removal trajectory.

  4. intel.com

    Intel states QAT is present on 4th Gen Xeon, 5th Gen Xeon, and Xeon 6 processors, so the underlying hardware family is still current in 2025.

codex reasoning notes (technical)

Local shell inspection of drivers/vfio/pci/qat/main.c and Kconfig showed a real module_pci_driver for Intel QAT GEN4/GEN6 VF devices and that its purpose is VFIO live migration for QAT VFs. Local git log showed first merge in 2024-04-29 plus substantive 2025-08-05 and 2025-11-12 updates. The LWN URL was obtained via web search and reflects the original lore-thread patch posting. The git.kernel.org commit URLs are canonical recall constructed from hashes obtained via local git log. The Intel QAT product URL was obtained via web search. Overall this is a young, niche virtualization driver for still-current Intel server hardware; deployment is specialized rather than broad, but the evidence points to active maintenance, not deprecation.