Re: My FreeBSD-current/Xen install notes
Kip Macy writes: > Based on L4Linux, I believe that the amount of work required for > porting a PV OS is much less than creating a new "personality" for a > microkernel. That said, isn't a hypervisor really a microkernel with > device and virtual memory abstraction API? OS personalities were a promise that was always brought up with microkernels, but never really delivered. Although, L4Linux could be seen as "Linux personality" for L4. The nice thing about microkernels is that they abstract enough of the underlying hardware to be open for a lot of experimenting. I think this is quite nice for student projects. On the microkernel vs. hypervisor topic: L4 has a very nice virtual memory abstraction and you can build device abstraction quite easily on top of it. If you only want paravirtualization, L4 could have delivered that years before Xen did. And actually it did: L4Linux exists for quite some time and I believe that there was also a paper on live migration of L4Linux instances way before Xen did that. IMHO given some commercial support (and some foresight), L4 could have been the better Xen. Regards, -- Julian Stecklina The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners - Ernst Jan Plugge ___ freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: My FreeBSD-current/Xen install notes
> You can use microkernels[1] for almost the same thing. It's what we do > at Technische Universität Dresden. > > Regards, > -- > Julian Stecklina > > The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day > they start making vacuum cleaners - Ernst Jan Plugge > > Footnotes: > [1] There is a sexy new microhypervisor to be released Real Soon > Now(tm) too: > http://eurosys09dw.systems.ethz.ch/steinberg.pdf > Based on L4Linux, I believe that the amount of work required for porting a PV OS is much less than creating a new "personality" for a microkernel. That said, isn't a hypervisor really a microkernel with device and virtual memory abstraction API? Cheers, Kip ___ freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: My FreeBSD-current/Xen install notes
Peter Jeremy writes: > On 2009-May-20 08:30:09 +0800, Adrian Chadd wrote: >>Xen also lets you write "other" OSes without needing to care about the >>hardware. One of my friends bootstrapped a toy OS of his inside Xen. >>He can then run it on any and all Xen boxes, unmodified, regardless of >>the underlying hardware. That really hasn't been exploited to its full >>potential though. > > This isn't a particularly new idea: The 'CMS' part of IBM VM/CMS was a > hypervisor-aware OS that couldn't run on bare metal. > > Relying on the hypervisor for some "traditional" OS services offers > plenty of scope for interesting developments. One area would be in > University Operating Systems courses - it would again be possible to > offer practical coursework on operating systems that are comprehendable > in their entirety (ala V6 and Minix). You can use microkernels[1] for almost the same thing. It's what we do at Technische Universität Dresden. Regards, -- Julian Stecklina The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners - Ernst Jan Plugge Footnotes: [1] There is a sexy new microhypervisor to be released Real Soon Now(tm) too: http://eurosys09dw.systems.ethz.ch/steinberg.pdf ___ freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: My FreeBSD-current/Xen install notes
VIMAGE and jails are OS-level virtualization, orthogonal to Xen. I want to run Xen so I can build and test Ogg Frog[1] on each of the target platforms I plan to support. I built a fancy Xeon box so that I could even build and test on all the platforms simultaneously. I also operate a couple Internet servers, which are themselves Xen DomUs at commercial Xen Virtual Private Server hosting services. I'd like to place each service that they operate into a jail, so that if someone manages to bust in because of a security hole in one of the server programs, they would only be able to get at the contents of that particular jail. But all of the jails are just subdivisions of a single operating system; I can't run other OSes within them. [1] http://www.oggfrog.com/free-music-software/ No, there is nothing to download yet. Real Soon Now. Mike -- Michael David Crawford m...@prgmr.com prgmr.com - We Don't Assume You Are Stupid. Xen-Powered Virtual Private Servers: http://prgmr.com/xen ___ freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: My FreeBSD-current/Xen install notes
On 2009-May-20 08:30:09 +0800, Adrian Chadd wrote: >Xen also lets you write "other" OSes without needing to care about the >hardware. One of my friends bootstrapped a toy OS of his inside Xen. >He can then run it on any and all Xen boxes, unmodified, regardless of >the underlying hardware. That really hasn't been exploited to its full >potential though. This isn't a particularly new idea: The 'CMS' part of IBM VM/CMS was a hypervisor-aware OS that couldn't run on bare metal. Relying on the hypervisor for some "traditional" OS services offers plenty of scope for interesting developments. One area would be in University Operating Systems courses - it would again be possible to offer practical coursework on operating systems that are comprehendable in their entirety (ala V6 and Minix). -- Peter Jeremy pgpD60xAlNVpN.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: My FreeBSD-current/Xen install notes
2009/5/20 Saifi Khan : > Could you please share 'your insight' on the > 'set of virtualization problems' that Xen solves ? Xen lets you run multiple versions of modified OSes on the same box. Each OS for the most part can treat its small pool of resources as its own. It hides the underlying hardware from the virtual domain (although its apparently quite popular to break out bits of hardware to appear in the virtual domain.) The Xen paravirtualisation stuff in -theory- should be more lightweight than full hardware virtualisation and it should perform better. In practice? That's very much workload dependant. Xen also lets you write "other" OSes without needing to care about the hardware. One of my friends bootstrapped a toy OS of his inside Xen. He can then run it on any and all Xen boxes, unmodified, regardless of the underlying hardware. That really hasn't been exploited to its full potential though. Adrian ___ freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: My FreeBSD-current/Xen install notes
On Tue, 19 May 2009, Adrian Chadd wrote: > > People seem to think "virtualisation" is "virtualisation". It isn't. > It depends on what kind(s) of problems you're trying to solve. Xen > solves a certain set of virtualisation problems. > Could you please share 'your insight' on the 'set of virtualization problems' that Xen solves ? thanks Saifi. ___ freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: My FreeBSD-current/Xen install notes
2009/5/19 Saifi Khan : > . is dom0 support something that FreeBSD will target at some > point in time or would be happy to be domU ? If Kip (and other Xen-clueful people get funding) - and there's time - then I bet so. > . there was some mention of vimage/bitvisor in one of the > slides (i think on scribd.com). So, is it that jails getting > extended to support virtualization+containers and thus a > entirely different approach which does not use Xen ? These solve different problem sets. :) People seem to think "virtualisation" is "virtualisation". It isn't. It depends on what kind(s) of problems you're trying to solve. Xen solves a certain set of virtualisation problems. > . is it envisaged that a stable NetBSD dom0 implementation > would then be ported to FreeBSD (maybe) ? No idea. Is it stable? :) Personally, I'd prefer to see the FreeBSD DomU stuff 100% bulletproof and documented before more stuff is hacked on, but as I said before, I'm just interested in getting the current pieces into some kind of documented shape; I'm not hacking on Xen by any stretch of the imagination! Adrian ___ freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: My FreeBSD-current/Xen install notes
2009/5/19 Saifi Khan : > . is dom0 support something that FreeBSD will target at some > point in time or would be happy to be domU ? I cannot speak for the developers but at BSDCan it was stated that dom0 would be a large chunk of job that deserves funding. The developers are interested. > . there was some mention of vimage/bitvisor in one of the > slides (i think on scribd.com). So, is it that jails getting > extended to support virtualization+containers and thus a > entirely different approach which does not use Xen ? VIMAGE and jails are OS-level virtualization, orthogonal to Xen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system-level_virtualization > . is it envisaged that a stable NetBSD dom0 implementation > would then be ported to FreeBSD (maybe) ? Probably not - the systems are too different now. ___ freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: My FreeBSD-current/Xen install notes
On Tue, 19 May 2009, Adrian Chadd wrote: > I don't think there's any support for Dom0 stuff in FreeBSD. > > http://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/Xen has further information about what > is and isn't supported at this time. > > Adrian > > 2009/5/19 Saifi Khan : > > On Mon, 18 May 2009, Adrian Chadd wrote: > > > >> I've started documenting (mostly for my own memory for now!) my > >> experiences getting a working FreeBSD-current Xen environment > >> together. > >> > >> http://wiki.freebsd.org/AdrianChadd/XenHackery > >> > >> Notable bits: pygrub works. :) > >> > >> Adrian > > > > Hi: > > > > What is the extent of Dom0 support for FreeBSD 8.x with Xen > > 3.3.x ? > > > > My interest is to run multiple guest OS hosted on a Xen-ified > > (aka paravirtualized) FreeBSD 8.x on a multi-core intel or AMD64 > > box. > > > > Any pointers or observations ? > > Hi Adrian: Thank you for the clarification about "no dom0 support in FreeBSD 8.x as of now". Yes, i did visit the wiki link couple of months ago and in fact dropped a mail to Kip as well :) there was no response, guess he was busy. i'd be thankful, if you could share your observations about the following: . is dom0 support something that FreeBSD will target at some point in time or would be happy to be domU ? . there was some mention of vimage/bitvisor in one of the slides (i think on scribd.com). So, is it that jails getting extended to support virtualization+containers and thus a entirely different approach which does not use Xen ? . is it envisaged that a stable NetBSD dom0 implementation would then be ported to FreeBSD (maybe) ? Thank you for your time. thanks Saifi. ___ freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: My FreeBSD-current/Xen install notes
I don't think there's any support for Dom0 stuff in FreeBSD. http://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/Xen has further information about what is and isn't supported at this time. Adrian 2009/5/19 Saifi Khan : > On Mon, 18 May 2009, Adrian Chadd wrote: > >> I've started documenting (mostly for my own memory for now!) my >> experiences getting a working FreeBSD-current Xen environment >> together. >> >> http://wiki.freebsd.org/AdrianChadd/XenHackery >> >> Notable bits: pygrub works. :) >> >> Adrian > > Hi: > > What is the extent of Dom0 support for FreeBSD 8.x with Xen > 3.3.x ? > > My interest is to run multiple guest OS hosted on a Xen-ified > (aka paravirtualized) FreeBSD 8.x on a multi-core intel or AMD64 > box. > > Any pointers or observations ? > > > thanks > Saifi. > ___ > freebsd-curr...@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-current-unsubscr...@freebsd.org" > ___ freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: My FreeBSD-current/Xen install notes
On Mon, 18 May 2009, Adrian Chadd wrote: > I've started documenting (mostly for my own memory for now!) my > experiences getting a working FreeBSD-current Xen environment > together. > > http://wiki.freebsd.org/AdrianChadd/XenHackery > > Notable bits: pygrub works. :) > > Adrian Hi: What is the extent of Dom0 support for FreeBSD 8.x with Xen 3.3.x ? My interest is to run multiple guest OS hosted on a Xen-ified (aka paravirtualized) FreeBSD 8.x on a multi-core intel or AMD64 box. Any pointers or observations ? thanks Saifi. ___ freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
My FreeBSD-current/Xen install notes
I've started documenting (mostly for my own memory for now!) my experiences getting a working FreeBSD-current Xen environment together. http://wiki.freebsd.org/AdrianChadd/XenHackery Notable bits: pygrub works. :) Adrian ___ freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
