Patent ID: 8219989

Claim:
A method of establishing access to a physical input/output (I/O) device of a data processing system, the method comprising: initiating, by an initiating logical partition of the data processing system, creation of a partition adjunct, the initiating logical partition having assigned thereto a distinct virtual address space; invoking a hypervisor of the data processing system to instantiate the partition adjunct with resources donated from the initiating logical partition, the donated resources comprising a portion of the distinct virtual address space assign to the initiating logical partition and the physical I/O device; creating, by the hypervisor, the partition adjunct and associating therewith the donated physical I/O device, and the donated portion of the distinct virtual address space assigned to the initiating logical partition; interfacing, by the hypervisor, the initiating logical partition and the created partition adjunct, the interfacing including providing the initiating logical partition with a virtual I/O device which replaces the donated physical I/O device, wherein the donated physical I/O device is non-configurable by the initiating logical partition and the virtual I/O device is configurable by the initiating logical partition; and wherein the initiating logical partition and the instantiated partition adjunct both run in the distinct virtual address space assigned to the initiating logical partition, and from perspective of a processor of the data processing system, the partition adjunct is part of the initiating logical partition.