Re: [ANNOUNCE] KVM Microconference at LPC 2023

Re: [ANNOUNCE] KVM Microconference at LPC 2023

[Mickaël Salaün]

See James Morris's proposal here: 
https://lore.kernel.org/all/17f62cb1-a5de-2020-2041-359b8e96b8c0@linux.microsoft.com/

On 26/05/2023 04:36, James Morris wrote:
 > [Side topic]
 >
 > Would folks be interested in a Linux Plumbers Conference MC on this
 > topic generally, across different hypervisors, VMMs, and architectures?
 >
 > If so, please let me know who the key folk would be and we can try 
writing
 > up an MC proposal.

The fine-grain memory management proposal from James Gowans looks 
interesting, especially the "side-car" virtual machines: 
https://lore.kernel.org/all/88db2d9cb42e471692ff1feb0b9ca855906a9d95.camel@amazon.com/


On 09/05/2023 11:55, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> Hi all!
> 
> We are planning on submitting a CFP to host a KVM Microconference at
> Linux Plumbers Conference 2023. To help justify the proposal, we would
> like to gather a list of folks that would likely attend, and crowdsource
> a list of topics to include in the proposal.
> 
> For both this year and future years, the intent is that a KVM
> Microconference will complement KVM Forum, *NOT* supplant it. As you
> probably noticed, KVM Forum is going through a somewhat radical change in
> how it's organized; the conference is now free and (with some help from
> Red Hat) organized directly by the KVM and QEMU communities. Despite the
> unexpected changes and some teething pains, community response to KVM
> Forum continues to be overwhelmingly positive! KVM Forum will remain
> the venue of choice for KVM/userspace collaboration, for educational
> content covering both KVM and userspace, and to discuss new features in
> QEMU and other userspace projects.
> 
> At least on the x86 side, however, the success of KVM Forum led us
> virtualization folks to operate in relative isolation. KVM depends on
> and impacts multiple subsystems (MM, scheduler, perf) in profound ways,
> and recently we’ve seen more and more ideas/features that require
> non-trivial changes outside KVM and buy-in from stakeholders that
> (typically) do not attend KVM Forum. Linux Plumbers Conference is a
> natural place to establish such collaboration within the kernel.
> 
> Therefore, the aim of the KVM Microconference will be:
> * to provide a setting in which to discuss KVM and kernel internals
> * to increase collaboration and reduce friction with other subsystems
> * to discuss system virtualization issues that require coordination with
> other subsystems (such as VFIO, or guest support in arch/)
> 
> Below is a rough draft of the planned CFP submission.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Paolo Bonzini (KVM Maintainer)
> Sean Christopherson (KVM x86 Co-Maintainer)
> Marc Zyngier (KVM ARM Co-Maintainer)
> 
> 
> ===================
> KVM Microconference
> ===================
> 
> KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) enables the use of hardware features
> to improve the efficiency, performance, and security of virtual machines
> created and managed by userspace.  KVM was originally developed to host
> and accelerate "full" virtual machines running a traditional kernel and
> operating system, but has long since expanded to cover a wide array of use
> cases, e.g. hosting real time workloads, sandboxing untrusted workloads,
> deprivileging third party code, reducing the trusted computed base of
> security sensitive workloads, etc.  As KVM's use cases have grown, so too
> have the requirements placed on KVM and the interactions between it and
> other kernel subsystems.
> 
> The KVM Microconference will focus on how to evolve KVM and adjacent
> subsystems in order to satisfy new and upcoming requirements: serving
> guest memory that cannot be accessed by host userspace[1], providing
> accurate, feature-rich PMU/perf virtualization in cloud VMs[2], etc.
> 
> 
> Potential Topics:
>     - Serving inaccessible/unmappable memory for KVM guests (protected VMs)
>     - Optimizing mmu_notifiers, e.g. reducing TLB flushes and spurious zapping
>     - Supporting multiple KVM modules (for non-disruptive upgrades)
>     - Improving and hardening KVM+perf interactions
>     - Implementing arch-agnostic abstractions in KVM (e.g. MMU)
>     - Defining KVM requirements for hardware vendors
>     - Utilizing "fault" injection to increase test coverage of edge cases
>     - KVM vs VFIO (e.g. memory types, a rather hot topic on the ARM side)
> 
> 
> Key Attendees:
>     - Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> (KVM Maintainer)
>     - Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>  (KVM x86 Co-Maintainer)
>     - Your name could be here!
> 
> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/20221202061347.1070246-1-chao.p.peng@linux.intel.com
> [2] https://lore.kernel.org/all/CALMp9eRBOmwz=mspp0m5Q093K3rMUeAsF3vEL39MGV5Br9wEQQ@mail.gmail.com
> 
> 

Re: [ANNOUNCE] KVM Microconference at LPC 2023

[Mickaël Salaün]

Hi,

What is the status of this microconference proposal? We'd be happy to 
talk about Heki [1] and potentially other hypervisor supports.

Regards,
  Mickaël


[1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/20230505152046.6575-1-mic@digikod.net/


On 26/05/2023 18:09, Mickaël Salaün wrote:
> See James Morris's proposal here:
> https://lore.kernel.org/all/17f62cb1-a5de-2020-2041-359b8e96b8c0@linux.microsoft.com/
> 
> On 26/05/2023 04:36, James Morris wrote:
>   > [Side topic]
>   >
>   > Would folks be interested in a Linux Plumbers Conference MC on this
>   > topic generally, across different hypervisors, VMMs, and architectures?
>   >
>   > If so, please let me know who the key folk would be and we can try
> writing
>   > up an MC proposal.
> 
> The fine-grain memory management proposal from James Gowans looks
> interesting, especially the "side-car" virtual machines:
> https://lore.kernel.org/all/88db2d9cb42e471692ff1feb0b9ca855906a9d95.camel@amazon.com/
> 
> 
> On 09/05/2023 11:55, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
>> Hi all!
>>
>> We are planning on submitting a CFP to host a KVM Microconference at
>> Linux Plumbers Conference 2023. To help justify the proposal, we would
>> like to gather a list of folks that would likely attend, and crowdsource
>> a list of topics to include in the proposal.
>>
>> For both this year and future years, the intent is that a KVM
>> Microconference will complement KVM Forum, *NOT* supplant it. As you
>> probably noticed, KVM Forum is going through a somewhat radical change in
>> how it's organized; the conference is now free and (with some help from
>> Red Hat) organized directly by the KVM and QEMU communities. Despite the
>> unexpected changes and some teething pains, community response to KVM
>> Forum continues to be overwhelmingly positive! KVM Forum will remain
>> the venue of choice for KVM/userspace collaboration, for educational
>> content covering both KVM and userspace, and to discuss new features in
>> QEMU and other userspace projects.
>>
>> At least on the x86 side, however, the success of KVM Forum led us
>> virtualization folks to operate in relative isolation. KVM depends on
>> and impacts multiple subsystems (MM, scheduler, perf) in profound ways,
>> and recently we’ve seen more and more ideas/features that require
>> non-trivial changes outside KVM and buy-in from stakeholders that
>> (typically) do not attend KVM Forum. Linux Plumbers Conference is a
>> natural place to establish such collaboration within the kernel.
>>
>> Therefore, the aim of the KVM Microconference will be:
>> * to provide a setting in which to discuss KVM and kernel internals
>> * to increase collaboration and reduce friction with other subsystems
>> * to discuss system virtualization issues that require coordination with
>> other subsystems (such as VFIO, or guest support in arch/)
>>
>> Below is a rough draft of the planned CFP submission.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Paolo Bonzini (KVM Maintainer)
>> Sean Christopherson (KVM x86 Co-Maintainer)
>> Marc Zyngier (KVM ARM Co-Maintainer)
>>
>>
>> ===================
>> KVM Microconference
>> ===================
>>
>> KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) enables the use of hardware features
>> to improve the efficiency, performance, and security of virtual machines
>> created and managed by userspace.  KVM was originally developed to host
>> and accelerate "full" virtual machines running a traditional kernel and
>> operating system, but has long since expanded to cover a wide array of use
>> cases, e.g. hosting real time workloads, sandboxing untrusted workloads,
>> deprivileging third party code, reducing the trusted computed base of
>> security sensitive workloads, etc.  As KVM's use cases have grown, so too
>> have the requirements placed on KVM and the interactions between it and
>> other kernel subsystems.
>>
>> The KVM Microconference will focus on how to evolve KVM and adjacent
>> subsystems in order to satisfy new and upcoming requirements: serving
>> guest memory that cannot be accessed by host userspace[1], providing
>> accurate, feature-rich PMU/perf virtualization in cloud VMs[2], etc.
>>
>>
>> Potential Topics:
>>      - Serving inaccessible/unmappable memory for KVM guests (protected VMs)
>>      - Optimizing mmu_notifiers, e.g. reducing TLB flushes and spurious zapping
>>      - Supporting multiple KVM modules (for non-disruptive upgrades)
>>      - Improving and hardening KVM+perf interactions
>>      - Implementing arch-agnostic abstractions in KVM (e.g. MMU)
>>      - Defining KVM requirements for hardware vendors
>>      - Utilizing "fault" injection to increase test coverage of edge cases
>>      - KVM vs VFIO (e.g. memory types, a rather hot topic on the ARM side)
>>
>>
>> Key Attendees:
>>      - Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> (KVM Maintainer)
>>      - Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>  (KVM x86 Co-Maintainer)
>>      - Your name could be here!
>>
>> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/20221202061347.1070246-1-chao.p.peng@linux.intel.com
>> [2] https://lore.kernel.org/all/CALMp9eRBOmwz=mspp0m5Q093K3rMUeAsF3vEL39MGV5Br9wEQQ@mail.gmail.com
>>
>>

Re: [ANNOUNCE] KVM Microconference at LPC 2023

[Sean Christopherson]

On Thu, Jun 01, 2023, Micka�l Sala�n wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> What is the status of this microconference proposal? We'd be happy to talk
> about Heki [1] and potentially other hypervisor supports.

Proposal submitted (deadline is/was today), now we wait :-)  IIUC, we should find
out rather quickly whether or not the KVM MC is a go.