Re: [RFC Patch 0/7] kernel: Introduce multikernel architecture support

Jarkko Sakkinen
2025-09-26T09:01:04Z

On Thu, Sep 18, 2025 at 03:25:59PM -0700, Cong Wang wrote:
> This patch series introduces multikernel architecture support, enabling
> multiple independent kernel instances to coexist and communicate on a
> single physical machine. Each kernel instance can run on dedicated CPU
> cores while sharing the underlying hardware resources.
>
> The multikernel architecture provides several key benefits:
> - Improved fault isolation between different workloads
> - Enhanced security through kernel-level separation
> - Better resource utilization than traditional VM (KVM, Xen etc.)
> - Potential zero-down kernel update with KHO (Kernel Hand Over)

This list is like asking AI to list benefits, or like the whole cover
letter has that type of feel.

I'd probably work on benchmarks and other types of tests that can
deliver comparative figures, and show data that addresses workloads
with KVM, namespaces/cgroups and this, reflecting these qualities.

E.g. consider "Enhanced security through kernel-level separation".
It's a pre-existing feature probably since dawn of time. Any new layer
makes obviously more complex version "kernel-level separation". You'd
had to prove that this even more complex version is more secure than
pre-existing science.

kexec and its various corner cases and how this patch set addresses
them is the part where I'm most lost.

If I look at one of multikernel distros (I don't know any other
tbh) that I know it's really VT-d and that type of hardware
enforcement that make Qubes shine:

https://www.qubes-os.org/

That said, I did not look how/if this is using CPU virtualization
features as part of the solution, so correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not entirely sure whether this is aimed to be alternative to
namespaces/cgroups or vms but more in the direction of Solaris Zones
would be imho better alternative at least for containers because
it saves the overhead of an extra kernel. There's also a patch set
for this:

https://lwn.net/Articles/780364/?ref=alian.info

VM barrier combined with IOMMU is pretty strong and hardware
enforced, and with polished configuration it can be fairly
performant (e.g. via page cache bypass and stuff like that)
so really the overhead that this is fighting against is
context switch overhead.

In security I don't believe this has any realistic chances to
win over VMs and IOMMU...

BR, Jarkko