From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Avi Kivity Subject: Re: [RFC] Unify KVM kernel-space and user-space code into a single project Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:03:19 +0200 Message-ID: <4BA68997.60406@redhat.com> References: <4BA256FE.5080501@codemonkey.ws> <84144f021003180951s5207de16p1cdf4b9b04040222@mail.gmail.com> <20100318170223.GB9756@elte.hu> <4BA25E66.2050800@redhat.com> <20100318172805.GB26067@elte.hu> <4BA32E1A.2060703@redhat.com> <20100319085346.GG12576@elte.hu> <4BA3747F.60401@codemonkey.ws> <20100321191742.GD25922@elte.hu> <4BA67B2F.4030101@redhat.com> <20100321200849.GA51323@dspnet.fr.eu.org> <4BA67D75.8060809@redhat.com> <4BA67F12.6030501@nagafix.co.uk> <4BA68063.2050800@redhat.com> <4BA68234.1060804@nagafix.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Olivier Galibert , Ingo Molnar , Anthony Liguori , Pekka Enberg , "Zhang, Yanmin" , Peter Zijlstra , Sheng Yang , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, kvm@vger.kernel.org, Marcelo Tosatti , oerg Roedel , Jes Sorensen , Gleb Natapov , Zachary Amsden , ziteng.huang@intel.com, Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo , Fr?d?ric Weisbecker To: Antoine Martin Return-path: In-Reply-To: <4BA68234.1060804@nagafix.co.uk> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: kvm.vger.kernel.org On 03/21/2010 10:31 PM, Antoine Martin wrote: > On 03/22/2010 03:24 AM, Avi Kivity wrote: >> On 03/21/2010 10:18 PM, Antoine Martin wrote: >>>> That includes the guest kernel. If you can deploy a new kernel in >>>> the guest, presumably you can deploy a userspace package. >>> >>> That's not always true. >>> The host admin can control the guest kernel via "kvm -kernel" easily >>> enough, but he may or may not have access to the disk that is used >>> in the guest. (think encrypted disks, service agreements, etc) >> >> There is a matching -initrd argument that you can use to launch a >> daemon. > I thought this discussion was about making it easy to deploy... and > generating a custom initrd isn't easy by any means, and it requires > access to the guest filesystem (and its mkinitrd tools). That's true. You need to run mkinitrd anyway, though, unless your guest is non-modular and non-lvm. >> I believe that -kernel use will be rare, though. It's a lot easier >> to keep everything in one filesystem. > Well, for what it's worth, I rarely ever use anything else. My virtual > disks are raw so I can loop mount them easily, and I can also switch > my guest kernels from outside... without ever needing to mount those > disks. Curious, what do you use them for? btw, if you build your kernel outside the guest, then you already have access to all its symbols, without needing anything further. -- Do not meddle in the internals of kernels, for they are subtle and quick to panic.