Re: Xen & VMI?

Gerd Hoffmann
2007-03-06T09:15:08Z

Ingo Molnar wrote:
> * Gerd Hoffmann <kraxel@suse.de> wrote:
>
>>> [using vmi rom]
>> IIRC there was some proof-of-concept at least for xen guests.
>
> yes - but de-facto contradicted by the Xen paravirt_ops patches sent to
> lkml ;)

Yep. The fact that it is possible to do that doesn't imply that it is
the best solution.

Oh, and btw: What was the reason why kvm paravirtualization doesn't use
the vmi interface?

>>> the QA matrix is gonna be a _mess_.
>> I fail to see how xen-via-vmirom instead of xen-via-paravirt_ops
>> reduces the QA effort. You still have 5 Hypervisors you have to test
>> against.
>
> yes, just like we have thousands of separate PC boards to support. But
> as long as the basic ABI is the same, the QA effort on the Linux kernel
> side is alot more focused.

xen and vmware are still two very different hypervisors from the memory
mangement point of view. I doubt moving the abstraction line within the
linux kernel from paravirt_ops to vmi makes QA easier.

cheers,
Gerd

--
Gerd Hoffmann <kraxel@suse.de>