GPL release of Virtual Iron sources

GPL release of Virtual Iron sources

[Ben Thomas]

You may be aware that Virtual Iron has been working on features and
enhancements to this open source project. We've contributed changes
along the way and have always planned to contribute all of our changes
back to the community. We've reached an appropriate time to do
this. As a member of this community, we look forward to continuing to
work together to further enhance this world-class open source
hypervisor.

Our focus is the support of full virtualization on a 64 bit
hypervisor, running all flavors of guest operating systems (Linux,
Windows, 32 bit, 32 bit PAE, 64 bit, uni, SMP, etc) concurrently.  As
part of this effort, we have added many features, enhancements and
fixes to the open source code. We are releasing all of the changes to
the source code under GNU GPL license.

The system consists of several components: open source hypervisor,
para-virtualized Linux and a run-time control environment. In the
process of developing the system, whenever we could, we contributed
modifications back to the community. Some were accepted, some were not
and others could not be contributed either due to rejection of
previous patches, complexity of change, or time constraints.

Some of the more interesting features are:

- new shadow page table code (XI)

- accelerated driver support in fully virtualized user domains

- dynamic (live) user domain migration support for fully virtualized
     domains

- a modified bus architecture

- a different control plane model in domain-0 (no user accessible
     environment, no Python, no xen* daemons, etc)

While we are working to create patches for individual changes, we want
to provide access to the source code as soon as possible.  The links
below provide access to the source code, all provided under GPL. It is
broken into two components:

- source code for domain-0 and hypervisor
    See http://www.virtualiron.com/products/open_source.cfm

- source code for accelerated drivers for user domains
    See http://www.virtualiron.com/products/open_source.cfm

Moving forward, we are actively working to package our changes and
post them to the list for submission to the open source project. We
expect to be submitting changes in the coming weeks. Further, for
compatibility, it is our intent to integrate with every major point
release of the open source project.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ben Thomas                                         Virtual Iron Software
bthomas@virtualiron.com                            Tower 1, Floor 2
978-849-1214                                       900 Chelmsford Street
                                                    Lowell, MA 01851

Re: GPL release of Virtual Iron sources

[Anthony Liguori]

This is a rather radical departure from where Xen is currently going.  
Is your goal to get this stuff in mainline or were you just making 
everyone aware of your changes?

If you're interested in getting it into mainline, we can discuss some of 
the details but as I said, this is rather different from where Xen is 
currently going...

Regards,

Anthony Liguori

Ben Thomas wrote:
> You may be aware that Virtual Iron has been working on features and
> enhancements to this open source project. We've contributed changes
> along the way and have always planned to contribute all of our changes
> back to the community. We've reached an appropriate time to do
> this. As a member of this community, we look forward to continuing to
> work together to further enhance this world-class open source
> hypervisor.
>
> Our focus is the support of full virtualization on a 64 bit
> hypervisor, running all flavors of guest operating systems (Linux,
> Windows, 32 bit, 32 bit PAE, 64 bit, uni, SMP, etc) concurrently.  As
> part of this effort, we have added many features, enhancements and
> fixes to the open source code. We are releasing all of the changes to
> the source code under GNU GPL license.
>
> The system consists of several components: open source hypervisor,
> para-virtualized Linux and a run-time control environment. In the
> process of developing the system, whenever we could, we contributed
> modifications back to the community. Some were accepted, some were not
> and others could not be contributed either due to rejection of
> previous patches, complexity of change, or time constraints.
>
> Some of the more interesting features are:
>
> - new shadow page table code (XI)
>
> - accelerated driver support in fully virtualized user domains
>
> - dynamic (live) user domain migration support for fully virtualized
>     domains
>
> - a modified bus architecture
>
> - a different control plane model in domain-0 (no user accessible
>     environment, no Python, no xen* daemons, etc)
>
> While we are working to create patches for individual changes, we want
> to provide access to the source code as soon as possible.  The links
> below provide access to the source code, all provided under GPL. It is
> broken into two components:
>
> - source code for domain-0 and hypervisor
>    See http://www.virtualiron.com/products/open_source.cfm
>
> - source code for accelerated drivers for user domains
>    See http://www.virtualiron.com/products/open_source.cfm
>
> Moving forward, we are actively working to package our changes and
> post them to the list for submission to the open source project. We
> expect to be submitting changes in the coming weeks. Further, for
> compatibility, it is our intent to integrate with every major point
> release of the open source project.
>

Re: GPL release of Virtual Iron sources

[Ben Thomas]

Hi Anthony,

Good to hear from you.  We really believe in the value of open
source and the opportunities that it provides for creativity.
I know that I mentioned in the original post that we've made
our source available in toto for reasons of time, with
patches to the existing open source to follow.  What's perhaps
a bit confusing is that we also released, in the same source
base, a number of differences in the control plane.  Our main
intersection of interest with the currently implemented
open source project is in the hypervisor.  We look forward to
providing the patches to the hypervisor and getting changes back
into that code base.

You're correct in noting that we also released other code.  It, too,
is released under GPL and is free for anyone to make any use of
it as they see fit.  If there is interest, advantange or opportunity
in incorporating any of this into the existing open source project,
we'll be happy to assist in whatever way we're able.  I believe that
there are many ways and scenarios in which the existing code may
be put to use.  The community has been terrific in moving forward on
one of the many possible solution sets.  I'd love to see where else
our combined creativity can take us.

Thanks for your continued interest,
-b


Anthony Liguori wrote:
> This is a rather radical departure from where Xen is currently going.  
> Is your goal to get this stuff in mainline or were you just making 
> everyone aware of your changes?
> 
> If you're interested in getting it into mainline, we can discuss some of 
> the details but as I said, this is rather different from where Xen is 
> currently going...
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Anthony Liguori
> 



-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ben Thomas                                         Virtual Iron Software
bthomas@virtualiron.com                            Tower 1, Floor 2
978-849-1214                                       900 Chelmsford Street
                                                    Lowell, MA 01851

Re: GPL release of Virtual Iron sources

[Anthony Liguori]

Ben Thomas wrote:
> Hi Anthony,
>
> Good to hear from you.  We really believe in the value of open
> source and the opportunities that it provides for creativity.
> I know that I mentioned in the original post that we've made
> our source available in toto for reasons of time, with
> patches to the existing open source to follow.  What's perhaps
> a bit confusing is that we also released, in the same source
> base, a number of differences in the control plane.  Our main
> intersection of interest with the currently implemented
> open source project is in the hypervisor.  We look forward to
> providing the patches to the hypervisor and getting changes back
> into that code base.

Right.  AFAICT, you're changes to the control plane would break guest 
compatibility.  For HVM, this really doesn't matter of course but it 
does matter for PV.  But now that I imagine you're committed to a 
different ABI, if changes need to happen to be acceptable for Xen, you 
can't do it without breaking your users.

Likewise, we're committed to the current ABI so breaking it to support 
your ABI is a bit of a problem.

Am I correct here in these assumptions?  Are you guys willing to break 
your ABI to try and get some of these ideas in?

I've been through a good chunk of the dom0 code.  Not exactly sure I 
would have done it the same way but I do like some of the general 
concepts (like a smaller userspace toolchain).

Regards,

Anthony Liguori

> You're correct in noting that we also released other code.  It, too,
> is released under GPL and is free for anyone to make any use of
> it as they see fit.  If there is interest, advantange or opportunity
> in incorporating any of this into the existing open source project,
> we'll be happy to assist in whatever way we're able.  I believe that
> there are many ways and scenarios in which the existing code may
> be put to use.  The community has been terrific in moving forward on
> one of the many possible solution sets.  I'd love to see where else
> our combined creativity can take us.
>
> Thanks for your continued interest,
> -b
>
>
> Anthony Liguori wrote:
>> This is a rather radical departure from where Xen is currently 
>> going.  Is your goal to get this stuff in mainline or were you just 
>> making everyone aware of your changes?
>>
>> If you're interested in getting it into mainline, we can discuss some 
>> of the details but as I said, this is rather different from where Xen 
>> is currently going...
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Anthony Liguori
>>
>
>
>

Re: GPL release of Virtual Iron sources

[Daniel P. Berrange]

On Tue, Oct 03, 2006 at 02:08:22PM -0400, Ben Thomas wrote:
> Some of the more interesting features are:
> 
> - a different control plane model in domain-0 (no user accessible
>     environment, no Python, no xen* daemons, etc)

This is intriguing - do you have any docs about this alternate control
plane which elaborate on its architecture & API, and the benefits it
brings over the current control plane ? When 3.0.4 development starts,
the new control API will be one of the core bits of work so understanding
this work you've done is very topical. Even if there's no desire to do
wholesale replacement of the Python daemons, ideas/lessons learnt from 
the API / network protocols may well be valuable.

> - source code for domain-0 and hypervisor
>    See http://www.virtualiron.com/products/open_source.cfm

Is the alternate Dom0 control plane agent code here compatible with the
current Xen unstable/3.0.3 HV & Dom0 kernel, or does it have dependancies
on changes you made to HV / dom0 too ?

Regards,
Dan.
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