Re: What is the current state of Dom0 kernel support?

[Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@goop.org>]

On 06/18/09 15:35, Anthony Wright wrote:
> I've seen a number of posts relating to dom0 support in more recent
> kernel versions, but I'm unsure what the current situation is and
> wondered if somebody might be able clarify things.
>
> I saw a lot of activity around 2.6.30 to get the dom0 patches accepted
> into the mainline kernel, but now while I believe the 2.6.31 merge
> window is open I see very little activity. There was an interesting
> thread prior to the merge window opening on the subject of dom0 support
> and wondered if as a result of this there's been a decision not to try
> to get the patches accepted at this time? If this is the case is there a
> plan to try again in the future?
>
> I also saw a thread from Kier recently on the subject of the xenbits
> linux trees, and wondered if any decision came out of that? Within the
> thread I saw mention of a number of other kernel patch sets that offer
> dom0 in a more recent kernels, but certain features seem to be missing
> from each one.
>
> If I wanted to to use a more recent kernel for dom0 within the next 3
> months what options are available, and do these options have any
> limitations?
>   

Well, the quick overview is:

    * I will be maintaining xen.git with dom0 support in it, and keeping
      that close to current kernel.org
    * A number of kernel developers expressed fairly strong objections
      to some aspects of the current dom0 patches, so I'm going over
      them to come up with something that will be more acceptable.  At
      the moment that looks like I'll be making changes to Xen itself,
      as well as the kernel, so there will likely be a requirement to
      track fairly up-to-date versions of xen-unstable for a while
    * I will be upstreaming pieces of dom0 support as they become ready
      and look acceptable for upstreaming.  The goal is to start
      shrinking the side of the out-of-tree patches as core kernel
      support increases.  This is going to be an incremental process,
      but it will work much better than trying to shove everything in at
      once.  The smaller (and less intrusive) the out-of-tree patchset
      becomes, the easier it is for distros to include it in their own
      patchset.

For now I've backed off putting anything much into the current merge
window, or even the next, in favour of getting the tree into good shape
for Xen users and working out what needs to happen to get a solid set of
upstreamable patches.

    J