Porting KVM to Mac OS?

Porting KVM to Mac OS?

[Neo Jia]

hi,

I am thinking if it is possible to port KVM to Mac OS (leopard). Is
there anybody doing this already?

If it is possible, which KVM release should I use as a start?

Thanks,
Neo
-- 
I would remember that if researchers were not ambitious
probably today we haven't the technology we are using!

Re: Porting KVM to Mac OS?

[Alexey Eremenko]

On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 8:16 AM, Neo Jia <neojia@gmail.com> wrote:
> hi,
>
> I am thinking if it is possible to port KVM to Mac OS (leopard). Is
> there anybody doing this already?
>

I have not heard of anyone doing this.

> If it is possible, which KVM release should I use as a start?

As usual, the latest -- take either KVM-83 (latest release) or
KVM-HEAD git (nightly code).

-- 
-Alexey Eromenko "Technologov"

Re: Porting KVM to Mac OS?

[Alexander Graf]

Hi,

On 25.01.2009, at 09:16, Neo Jia wrote:

> hi,
>
> I am thinking if it is possible to port KVM to Mac OS (leopard). Is
> there anybody doing this already?

I've considered doing it, but haven't gotten around to it, due to lack  
of inspiration.
The biggest problem IMHO is the sync. Rewriting a kvm module for Mac  
OS X should be fairly easy, but you'll miss all the good bugfixes from  
upstream. Using the upstream code with a wrapper on the other hand is  
probably a really big hassle, because osx doesn't really know about  
mmu notifiers and a lot of other Linux internal things.

So if you come up with a good idea for this problem, I'd be glad to  
help you out as much as time permits :-).

Alex

> If it is possible, which KVM release should I use as a start?
>
> Thanks,
> Neo
> -- 
> I would remember that if researchers were not ambitious
> probably today we haven't the technology we are using!
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: Porting KVM to Mac OS?

[Izik Eidus]

Alexander Graf wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 25.01.2009, at 09:16, Neo Jia wrote:
>
>> hi,
>>
>> I am thinking if it is possible to port KVM to Mac OS (leopard). Is
>> there anybody doing this already?
>
> I've considered doing it, but haven't gotten around to it, due to lack 
> of inspiration.
> The biggest problem IMHO is the sync. Rewriting a kvm module for Mac 
> OS X should be fairly easy, but you'll miss all the good bugfixes from 
> upstream. Using the upstream code with a wrapper on the other hand is 
> probably a really big hassle, because osx doesn't really know about 
> mmu notifiers and a lot of other Linux internal things.

You can use hardware breakpoints to emulate mmu notifiers beaivor for 
kernel that you cannot patch.
The only issue is that beacuse the source is close you may never know 
where is the right place to put the notification.

>
> So if you come up with a good idea for this problem, I'd be glad to 
> help you out as much as time permits :-).
>
> Alex
>
>> If it is possible, which KVM release should I use as a start?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Neo
>> -- 
>> I would remember that if researchers were not ambitious
>> probably today we haven't the technology we are using!
>> -- 
>> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in
>> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>
> -- 
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: Porting KVM to Mac OS?

[Anthony Liguori]

Alexander Graf wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 25.01.2009, at 09:16, Neo Jia wrote:
>
>> hi,
>>
>> I am thinking if it is possible to port KVM to Mac OS (leopard). Is
>> there anybody doing this already?
>
> I've considered doing it, but haven't gotten around to it, due to lack 
> of inspiration.
> The biggest problem IMHO is the sync. Rewriting a kvm module for Mac 
> OS X should be fairly easy, but you'll miss all the good bugfixes from 
> upstream. Using the upstream code with a wrapper on the other hand is 
> probably a really big hassle, because osx doesn't really know about 
> mmu notifiers and a lot of other Linux internal things.

Most of the special Linux internal things are optional when using the 
external kernel modules (in order to support older host kernels).  If 
you rely on that, there shouldn't be a huge amount of Linux-specific 
dependencies.

Best thing to do would be to avoid touching the KVM source code as much 
as humanly possible, and try to write a compatibility layer on top of 
the external kernel modules.  You could even use awk trickery like make 
sync does.  That way you can get bugfixes almost for free.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori

> So if you come up with a good idea for this problem, I'd be glad to 
> help you out as much as time permits :-).
>
> Alex
>
>> If it is possible, which KVM release should I use as a start?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Neo
>> -- 
>> I would remember that if researchers were not ambitious
>> probably today we haven't the technology we are using!
>> -- 
>> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in
>> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>
> -- 
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: Porting KVM to Mac OS?

[Neo Jia]

On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 10:00 AM, Anthony Liguori <anthony@codemonkey.ws> wrote:
> Alexander Graf wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On 25.01.2009, at 09:16, Neo Jia wrote:
>>
>>> hi,
>>>
>>> I am thinking if it is possible to port KVM to Mac OS (leopard). Is
>>> there anybody doing this already?
>>
>> I've considered doing it, but haven't gotten around to it, due to lack of
>> inspiration.
>> The biggest problem IMHO is the sync. Rewriting a kvm module for Mac OS X
>> should be fairly easy, but you'll miss all the good bugfixes from upstream.
>> Using the upstream code with a wrapper on the other hand is probably a
>> really big hassle, because osx doesn't really know about mmu notifiers and a
>> lot of other Linux internal things.
>
> Most of the special Linux internal things are optional when using the
> external kernel modules (in order to support older host kernels).  If you
> rely on that, there shouldn't be a huge amount of Linux-specific
> dependencies.
>
> Best thing to do would be to avoid touching the KVM source code as much as
> humanly possible, and try to write a compatibility layer on top of the
> external kernel modules.  You could even use awk trickery like make sync
> does.  That way you can get bugfixes almost for free.

Thanks! I am reviewing the possible interface wrapper solution now.
But I just notice that the current leopard is 32-bit. Will this be a
problem to run KVM as it always assume qemu-x86-64 bit?

Thanks,
Neo


>
> Regards,
>
> Anthony Liguori
>
>> So if you come up with a good idea for this problem, I'd be glad to help
>> you out as much as time permits :-).
>>
>> Alex
>>
>>> If it is possible, which KVM release should I use as a start?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Neo
>>> --
>>> I would remember that if researchers were not ambitious
>>> probably today we haven't the technology we are using!
>>> --
>>> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in
>>> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>>> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>>
>> --
>> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in
>> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>
>



-- 
I would remember that if researchers were not ambitious
probably today we haven't the technology we are using!

Re: Porting KVM to Mac OS?

[Alexander Graf]

On 16.02.2009, at 19:01, Neo Jia <neojia@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 10:00 AM, Anthony Liguori <anthony@codemonkey.ws 
> > wrote:
>> Alexander Graf wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> On 25.01.2009, at 09:16, Neo Jia wrote:
>>>
>>>> hi,
>>>>
>>>> I am thinking if it is possible to port KVM to Mac OS (leopard). Is
>>>> there anybody doing this already?
>>>
>>> I've considered doing it, but haven't gotten around to it, due to  
>>> lack of
>>> inspiration.
>>> The biggest problem IMHO is the sync. Rewriting a kvm module for  
>>> Mac OS X
>>> should be fairly easy, but you'll miss all the good bugfixes from  
>>> upstream.
>>> Using the upstream code with a wrapper on the other hand is  
>>> probably a
>>> really big hassle, because osx doesn't really know about mmu  
>>> notifiers and a
>>> lot of other Linux internal things.
>>
>> Most of the special Linux internal things are optional when using the
>> external kernel modules (in order to support older host kernels).   
>> If you
>> rely on that, there shouldn't be a huge amount of Linux-specific
>> dependencies.
>>
>> Best thing to do would be to avoid touching the KVM source code as  
>> much as
>> humanly possible, and try to write a compatibility layer on top of  
>> the
>> external kernel modules.  You could even use awk trickery like make  
>> sync
>> does.  That way you can get bugfixes almost for free.
>
> Thanks! I am reviewing the possible interface wrapper solution now.
> But I just notice that the current leopard is 32-bit. Will this be a
> problem to run KVM as it always assume qemu-x86-64 bit?

The Linux kernel module does work on 32 bit systems too. But please  
keep everything 64-bit aware, as the 10.6 kernel will be available in  
x86_64 flavors.

Alex

>
>
> Thanks,
> Neo
>
>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Anthony Liguori
>>
>>> So if you come up with a good idea for this problem, I'd be glad  
>>> to help
>>> you out as much as time permits :-).
>>>
>>> Alex
>>>
>>>> If it is possible, which KVM release should I use as a start?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Neo
>>>> --
>>>> I would remember that if researchers were not ambitious
>>>> probably today we haven't the technology we are using!
>>>> --
>>>> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in
>>>> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>>>> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>>>
>>> --
>>> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in
>>> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>>> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>>
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> I would remember that if researchers were not ambitious
> probably today we haven't the technology we are using!