Re: HYBRID: PV in HVM container

[Keir Fraser <keir@xen.org>]

On 28/06/2011 09:30, "Ian Campbell" <Ian.Campbell@citrix.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 2011-06-28 at 08:46 +0100, Keir Fraser wrote:
>> On 28/06/2011 02:51, "Mukesh Rathor" <mukesh.rathor@oracle.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Well, maybe. But we now have HVM guests, PV guests, and PV-HVM guests. I'm
>> not sure that adding explicitly HVM-PV guests as well isn't just a bloody
>> mess.
> 
> Ideally this container could be used to accelerate existing 64 bit
> guests (e.g. older distros running classic-Xen) unmodified (or at least
> only with latent bugs fixed) too.

There was a question mark over whether unmodified PV guests would tolerate
running in ring 0, rather than entirely in ring 3. I believe we're confident
it should work, and thus supporting classic-Xen guests should certainly be
the aim.

> Getting something working with a modified guest seems like a useful
> first step (to get to a working baseline) but I'm not sure it should be
> the end goal.

I certainly don't think we should commit such a thing without careful
thought.

 -- Keir

> Ian.
>