diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index 6e3295e6a..f073e3cf2 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -183,6 +183,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "vhost_rs 0.1.0",
  "vhost_user_backend 0.1.0",
  "virtio-bindings 0.1.0 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)",
+ "vm-device 0.1.0",
  "vm-memory 0.1.0 (git+https://github.com/rust-vmm/vm-memory)",
  "vm-virtio 0.1.0",
  "vmm 0.1.0",
@@ -1022,6 +1023,10 @@ dependencies = [
  "vm-memory 0.1.0 (git+https://github.com/rust-vmm/vm-memory)",
 ]
 
+[[package]]
+name = "vm-device"
+version = "0.1.0"
+
 [[package]]
 name = "vm-memory"
 version = "0.1.0"
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index 0000f6c89..b620e40a5 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@ net_util = { path = "net_util" }
 vhost_user_backend = { path = "vhost_user_backend"}
 virtio-bindings = "0.1.0"
 vmm = { path = "vmm" }
+vm-device = { path = "vm-device" }
 vm-memory = { git = "https://github.com/rust-vmm/vm-memory" }
 vmm-sys-util = "0.1.1"
 vm-virtio = { path = "vm-virtio" }
diff --git a/vm-device/Cargo.toml b/vm-device/Cargo.toml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..88b5c228d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/vm-device/Cargo.toml
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+[package]
+name = "vm-device"
+version = "0.1.0"
+authors = ["The Cloud Hypervisor Authors"]
+edition = "2018"
+
+[dependencies]
diff --git a/vm-device/src/lib.rs b/vm-device/src/lib.rs
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..c4d9b5bac
--- /dev/null
+++ b/vm-device/src/lib.rs
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+/// Trait meant for triggering the DMA mapping update related to an external
+/// device not managed fully through virtio. It is dedicated to virtio-iommu
+/// in order to trigger the map update anytime the mapping is updated from the
+/// guest.
+pub trait ExternalDmaMapping: Send + Sync {
+    /// Map a memory range
+    fn map(&self, iova: u64, gpa: u64, size: u64) -> std::result::Result<(), std::io::Error>;
+
+    /// Unmap a memory range
+    fn unmap(&self, iova: u64, size: u64) -> std::result::Result<(), std::io::Error>;
+}