virtualization revision 1.1
1$NetBSD: virtualization,v 1.1 2008/03/19 20:12:53 agc Exp $ 2 3NetBSD Virtualization Roadmap 4============================= 5 6This is a small roadmap document, and deals with the virtualization 7side of the operating system. 8 9NetBSD 5.0 will ship with the following virtualization elements in 10place: 11 121. Xen 3 Dom0 [i386/amd64] 132. Xen 3 DomU [i386/amd64] 143. Xen 3 PAE DomU [i386] 15 16The following elements and projects are pencilled in for 5.0, but 17please do not rely on them being there. 18 194. NetBSD/usermode 205. virtualization jails via secmodel 21 22The following projects are expected to be included in NetBSD 6.0 23 246. iSCSI booting 257. iSCSI device cloning 268. Xen domU migration, suspend and resume 279. Xen balloon driver support 28 29We expect to branch for the 5.0 release in April or May 2008, which would 30put a NetBSD 5.0 Release date in Q4 2008. An annual release cycle would 31thus mean that 6.0 would be branched in April or May 2009. 32 33Pictorially, this looks like: 34 35 2008 2009 36 Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug 37|===|===|===|===|===|===|===|===|===|===|===|===|===|===|===|===|===|===|===| 38 39 | ------- 5.0 --------- | | ------- 6.0 40 branch release branch 41 42 1-3 4,5 6 7 8 9 43 44We'll continue to update this roadmap as features and dates get firmed up. 45 46 47Some explanations 48================= 49 504. NetBSD/usermode 51------------------ 52 53NetBSD/usermode is an port of NetBSD to a POSIX-compatible user-space, with 54the intention that it should be possible to run the usermode version of 55NetBSD on any POSIX-compatible operating system. 56 57Responsible: jmcneill 58 595. Virtualization Jails via secmodel 60------------------------------------ 61 62One novel way of creating jails for virtualization is to use a new 63secmodel (part of the kauth framework), to isolate processes into 64jail-based virtual machines. This is the basis of a paper to appear 65in the AsiaBSDcon proceedings in March 2008. 66 67Responsible: bad 68 69 706. iSCSI booting 71---------------- 72 73In order to make Xen domains migration-friendly, the storage that the 74domain uses must be based on some form of network-centric storage, either 75NFS, or a SAN or IP-SAN. For IP-SANs, iSCSI booting will be used. 76 77Responsible: agc 78 797. iSCSI device cloning 80----------------------- 81 82To minimise the storage requirements for multiple domU booting, using 83a standard root filesystem or block device for the domU is required, along 84with some form of copy-on-write mechanism to preserve any modifications 85that are made. 86 87Responsible: agc 88 898. Xen domU migration, suspend and resume 90----------------------------------------- 91 92Xen domU migration is where a domU domain is moved from one dom0 to 93another dom0 on the same vlan (to avoid networking problems, the 94virtual arp address migrates with the domU itself). 95 96Responsible: bouyer 97 989. Xen balloon driver support 99----------------------------- 100 101The balloon driver allows more memory to be added to a running Xen domU 102instance; this allows extra memory to be used by the domU for resource 103peak needs. 104 105Responsible: bouyer 106 107 108Alistair Crooks 109Thu Mar 6 22:36:19 GMT 2008 110