Install Xen on ARM in a bare metal fashion on a Nexus Phone/Tablet or an ARM emulator

Install Xen on ARM in a bare metal fashion on a Nexus Phone/Tablet or an ARM emulator

[Sagun Garg]

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Hi,

I am new to the world of *"Xen on ARM"* would like to seek help from
community on how can I install Xen on ARM on a Nexus Phone / Tablet or an
emulator

I actually wish to try and install a unikernel : LING (Erlang on Xen) on
top of the hypervisor dual booted with Android or QNX on a mobile phone or
a tablet.

If someone can help me point to a TUTORIAL, LINK or some BLOG it will be
awesome.

Cheers
Sagun Garg
Chief System Architect,
www.nexchanges.com
Mumbai, India

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Re: Install Xen on ARM in a bare metal fashion on a Nexus Phone/Tablet or an ARM emulator

[Ian Campbell]

On Thu, 2014-12-04 at 15:44 +0530, Sagun Garg wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> 
> I am new to the world of "Xen on ARM" would like to seek help from
> community on how can I install Xen on ARM on a Nexus Phone / Tablet or
> an emulator
> 
> 
> I actually wish to try and install a unikernel : LING (Erlang on Xen)
> on top of the hypervisor dual booted with Android or QNX on a mobile
> phone or a tablet. 
> 
> 
> If someone can help me point to a TUTORIAL, LINK or some BLOG it will
> be awesome.

http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_ARM_with_Virtualization_Extensions is the
starting point for all Xen on ARM stuff. There is a list of supported
hardware there, but note that it doesn't include Nexus phones etc,
although of course you could port it if you wanted.

Arndale is probably the most mobile-like platform there (being a dev
board for the Exynos processor used in many phones), my personal
recommendation for running Xen on ARM is a sunxi platform, e.g.
cubietruck except in your case I'm not aware of anyone having looked
into the graphics side of things, which is probably a blocker for you.

You may be interested in http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_ARM_%28PV%29,
which has been run on tablets/phones, but note that it is not developed
by anyone on this list and is mostly abandonware as far as the open
source code goes.

Ian.

Re: Install Xen on ARM in a bare metal fashion on a Nexus Phone/Tablet or an ARM emulator

[Sagun Garg]

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Thanks Ian for helping me with the links,

FYI, I found following link :
https://blog.xenproject.org/2014/04/01/virtualization-on-arm-with-xen/
(Here it suggests using Foundation Model and Linaro, basically an emulator
to get started) though the advanced emulators offered by ARM are paid ones)

Would it be possible to install these ARM emulators on say AWS Amazon /
Digital Ocean with the free subscription to try and test these out ? Amazon
uses Xen as the underlying virtualization technology and it also uses
custom kernels since last 2 years so coincidentally it might just work
though the question is how (I read this somewhere on a blog, but I can't
point a link to it as I don't remember it, but would you know of such a
tuturial / link where someone else has pursued the same ?)

or would you know of any "RISC as a Service with ARM processors" that can
be provisioned on demand like AWS where we can install XEN on ARM directly
? Any cloud offering that can be used would be of great help.

Also I was wondering what are the risks / or rather shortcomings in trying
directly on the device Nexus / or any other ARM phone which has been tested
for the same.

Thanks in Advance

Cheers
Sagun Garg
Chief System Architect
www.nexchanges.com
+91 9920050386





On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 3:59 PM, Ian Campbell <Ian.Campbell@citrix.com>
wrote:

> On Thu, 2014-12-04 at 15:44 +0530, Sagun Garg wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> >
> > I am new to the world of "Xen on ARM" would like to seek help from
> > community on how can I install Xen on ARM on a Nexus Phone / Tablet or
> > an emulator
> >
> >
> > I actually wish to try and install a unikernel : LING (Erlang on Xen)
> > on top of the hypervisor dual booted with Android or QNX on a mobile
> > phone or a tablet.
> >
> >
> > If someone can help me point to a TUTORIAL, LINK or some BLOG it will
> > be awesome.
>
> http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_ARM_with_Virtualization_Extensions is the
> starting point for all Xen on ARM stuff. There is a list of supported
> hardware there, but note that it doesn't include Nexus phones etc,
> although of course you could port it if you wanted.
>
> Arndale is probably the most mobile-like platform there (being a dev
> board for the Exynos processor used in many phones), my personal
> recommendation for running Xen on ARM is a sunxi platform, e.g.
> cubietruck except in your case I'm not aware of anyone having looked
> into the graphics side of things, which is probably a blocker for you.
>
> You may be interested in http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_ARM_%28PV%29,
> which has been run on tablets/phones, but note that it is not developed
> by anyone on this list and is mostly abandonware as far as the open
> source code goes.
>
> Ian.
>
>
>
>

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Re: Install Xen on ARM in a bare metal fashion on a Nexus Phone/Tablet or an ARM emulator

[Ian Campbell]

Please don't top post.

On Fri, 2014-12-05 at 14:51 +0530, Sagun Garg wrote:
> Thanks Ian for helping me with the links,
> 
> 
> FYI, I found following link :
> https://blog.xenproject.org/2014/04/01/virtualization-on-arm-with-xen/
> (Here it suggests using Foundation Model and Linaro, basically an
> emulator to get started) though the advanced emulators offered by ARM
> are paid ones)
> 
> 
> Would it be possible to install these ARM emulators on say AWS
> Amazon / Digital Ocean with the free subscription to try and test
> these out ?

Those emulators will run on any x86 system, whether it is virtualised by
Amazon/DO or not. They are quite CPU intensive though.

>  Amazon uses Xen as the underlying virtualization technology and it
> also uses custom kernels since last 2 years so coincidentally it might
> just work though the question is how (I read this somewhere on a blog,
> but I can't point a link to it as I don't remember it, but would you
> know of such a tuturial / link where someone else has pursued the
> same ?)

Amazon offers x86 Xen, not ARM Xen. Xen does not do any kind of
cross-architecture virtualisation (i.e. running ARM OSes on X86, or vice
versa). So the fact that Amazon happens to run x86 Xen is of no use when
you want to run ARM Xen.

> or would you know of any "RISC as a Service with ARM processors" that
> can be provisioned on demand like AWS where we can install XEN on ARM
> directly ? Any cloud offering that can be used would be of great help.

I'm not aware of any cloud service offering ARM at the moment.

> Also I was wondering what are the risks / or rather shortcomings in
> trying directly on the device Nexus / or any other ARM phone which has
> been tested for the same. 

Not sure what sorts of risks you mean, I don't think there is anything
Xen specific here, just the usual stuff with running an untested OS on
any new platform.

I don't know if Nexus devices are brickable, but if so then that might
be an issue with trying any untested OS on them.

Phones and the like aren't typically very good debug platforms (i.e. no
serial, no JTAG etc) so running an untested OS on them can end up being
hard (but not impossible) to debug if it doesn't work, that's why
platforms such as the Arndale exist -- they are mobile phones with all
the extra useful debug stuff brought out to headers.

Ian.

Re: Install Xen on ARM in a bare metal fashion on a Nexus Phone/Tablet or an ARM emulator

[Julien Grall]

Hello,

On 05/12/2014 09:32, Ian Campbell wrote:
> On Fri, 2014-12-05 at 14:51 +0530, Sagun Garg wrote:
> Not sure what sorts of risks you mean, I don't think there is anything
> Xen specific here, just the usual stuff with running an untested OS on
> any new platform.
>
> I don't know if Nexus devices are brickable, but if so then that might
> be an issue with trying any untested OS on them.

Nexus platform tend to be a good platform for development. I would be 
surprised if you can brick it with untested OS. Though, I would not try 
to change the bootloader and I don't know if they support HYP mode.

>
> Phones and the like aren't typically very good debug platforms (i.e. no
> serial, no JTAG etc) so running an untested OS on them can end up being
> hard (but not impossible) to debug if it doesn't work, that's why
> platforms such as the Arndale exist -- they are mobile phones with all
> the extra useful debug stuff brought out to headers.

Nexus smartphone (at least 4) has an UART hidden in the headphone jack.
I don't know it's possible to buy the specific cable but you would be 
able to build your own. Though, I haven't tried myself.

The Linux kernel provided on AOSP has the code to enable the UART. So 
you should be able to get the log.

For Xen, you will have to implement yourself the debug UART.

-- 
Julien Grall

Re: Install Xen on ARM in a bare metal fashion on a Nexus Phone/Tablet or an ARM emulator

[Sagun Garg]

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On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 3:02 PM, Ian Campbell <Ian.Campbell@citrix.com>
wrote:

> Please don't top post.
>
> On Fri, 2014-12-05 at 14:51 +0530, Sagun Garg wrote:
> > Thanks Ian for helping me with the links,
> >
> >
> > FYI, I found following link :
> > https://blog.xenproject.org/2014/04/01/virtualization-on-arm-with-xen/
> > (Here it suggests using Foundation Model and Linaro, basically an
> > emulator to get started) though the advanced emulators offered by ARM
> > are paid ones)
> >
> >
> > Would it be possible to install these ARM emulators on say AWS
> > Amazon / Digital Ocean with the free subscription to try and test
> > these out ?
>
> Those emulators will run on any x86 system, whether it is virtualised by
> Amazon/DO or not. They are quite CPU intensive though.
>
> >  Amazon uses Xen as the underlying virtualization technology and it
> > also uses custom kernels since last 2 years so coincidentally it might
> > just work though the question is how (I read this somewhere on a blog,
> > but I can't point a link to it as I don't remember it, but would you
> > know of such a tuturial / link where someone else has pursued the
> > same ?)
>
> Amazon offers x86 Xen, not ARM Xen. Xen does not do any kind of
> cross-architecture virtualisation (i.e. running ARM OSes on X86, or vice
> versa). So the fact that Amazon happens to run x86 Xen is of no use when
> you want to run ARM Xen.
>
> > or would you know of any "RISC as a Service with ARM processors" that
> > can be provisioned on demand like AWS where we can install XEN on ARM
> > directly ? Any cloud offering that can be used would be of great help.
>
> I'm not aware of any cloud service offering ARM at the moment.
>
> > Also I was wondering what are the risks / or rather shortcomings in
> > trying directly on the device Nexus / or any other ARM phone which has
> > been tested for the same.
>
> Not sure what sorts of risks you mean, I don't think there is anything
> Xen specific here, just the usual stuff with running an untested OS on
> any new platform.
>
> I don't know if Nexus devices are brickable, but if so then that might
> be an issue with trying any untested OS on them.
>
> Phones and the like aren't typically very good debug platforms (i.e. no
> serial, no JTAG etc) so running an untested OS on them can end up being
> hard (but not impossible) to debug if it doesn't work, that's why
> platforms such as the Arndale exist -- they are mobile phones with all
> the extra useful debug stuff brought out to headers.
>
> Ian.
>
>
>
Hi Ian,

Got your point on Arndale Board, the approach mentioned by Julien with the
hidden UART in Nexus is also an excellent insight. Though one will have to
build the debugUART for Xen linux provides it our of box.

I happened to come across this article :
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/11/19/french-web-host-builds-bare-metal-arm-server-cloud/

This is a new on demand cloud service with ARMv7 chips enabled by
MARVEL(it's called physicalization instead of virtualization) they offer
ARMv7 bare metal as a service. This looks like on demand ARMv7 cloud based
servers. They are the first of it's kind and it seems they are planning to
price it lesser than Digital Ocean and AWS. The challenge is it's ARMv7 and
not v8.

Links
http://labs.online.net/press and http://labs.online.net/ Will it be ok to
install Xen on this? They are still in their trial mode.

Also I had a unrelated question, does Xen on Arm have  support for ELF
kernels (bzImage only). If yes can you please point out where discussions
relating to his are happening and if not any idea on whether there is going
to be support in near future?

-Sagun
<http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/11/19/french-web-host-builds-bare-metal-arm-server-cloud/>

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Re: Install Xen on ARM in a bare metal fashion on a Nexus Phone/Tablet or an ARM emulator

[Ian Campbell]

On Sat, 2014-12-06 at 14:28 +0530, Sagun Garg wrote:

> Links
> http://labs.online.net/press and http://labs.online.net/ Will it be ok
> to install Xen on this? They are still in their trial mode. 

I'm not aware of anyone having run Xen on a marvel chipset, but in
principal a port should be doable for someone who is interested. I
obviously can't comment on the features of this particular service wrt
installing and running your own OSes. 

> Also I had a unrelated question, does Xen on Arm have  support for ELF
> kernels (bzImage only). If yes can you please point out where
> discussions relating to his are happening and if not any idea on
> whether there is going to be support in near future?

bzImage is an x86 specific concept (and one which is somewhat orthogonal
to ELF at that).

On ARM we currently support kernels in the ARM Linux zImage format.

There have been some people looking at direct ELF loading, but I think
anyone who started down that path eventually decided that sticking a
zImage header on the front of a raw binary kernel was easier. AFAIK
noone is still looking into ELF.

Ian.

Re: Install Xen on ARM in a bare metal fashion on a Nexus Phone/Tablet or an ARM emulator

[Ian Campbell]

On Sun, 2014-12-07 at 15:00 +0530, Sagun Garg wrote:

> Hi Ian/Julien,

You only mailed me, not Julien or the list. Given you addressed it to
Julien I have assumed that the lack of CC was in error and added both
back. Please keep things on the list in future.

> I happened to find this link :
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/embeddedxen/?source=typ_redirect
> 
> 
> This looks like Xen on ARM ( For Nexus 5). 

It is a separate project. It is certainly nothing to do with the "Xen
ARM with Virtualization Extensions" stuff maintained in mainline Xen and
on this list.

I don't know what, if any, relationship it has with the "Xen ARM (PV)"
port. In any case none of the people involved are active on this list,
you would have to ask them what it was all about.

Ian.