Is there a list of NIC models that I should use with various HVM guests in Xen 4.0? Is there even a list of possible choices for the model=field? I'm planning on running both Windows and FreeBSD guests on the particular Xen box that I'm configuring now, and ideally I'd like a setting that can work on both of them and get me gigabit speeds without a lot of extra hassle loading special drivers (similar to VMware's e1000 NIC option). Any suggestions?
The vif line I'm currently using in my config is:
vif = [ 'type=ioemu,bridge=eth0,model=ne2k_pci,script=vif-ovs' ]
This works in my Windows XP SP3 VM, but is only recognized as a 10Mbit interface. Changing to model=e1000 or model=i82557b resulted in Windows not being able to find a driver for the NIC.
Here is the answer for XEN 3.4 from the XEN-WiKi. If you read this you will find that it depends on the capabilities of qemu-dm - I hope this helps for 4.0.
For Windows I would recommend using a PV driver.