Difference between revisions of "Archived/Xen Roadmap/4.3"

From Xen
(Not yet completed)
Line 8: Line 8:
 
The RCs and release will of course depend on stability and bugs, and will therefore be fairly unpredictable. The feature freeze may be slipped for especially important features which are near completion.
 
The RCs and release will of course depend on stability and bugs, and will therefore be fairly unpredictable. The feature freeze may be slipped for especially important features which are near completion.
   
Last updated: 17 January 2013
+
Last updated: 6 March January 2013
   
 
== Feature list ==
 
== Feature list ==
Line 38: Line 38:
 
* Persistent grants for blk (external)
 
* Persistent grants for blk (external)
 
- Linux
 
- Linux
  +
- qemu
  +
  +
* Allow XSM to override IS_PRIV checks in the hypervisor
  +
  +
* Scalability: 16TiB of RAM
  +
  +
* xl QXL Spice support
 
</pre>
 
</pre>
   
Line 52: Line 59:
 
This node is normally written by the guest kernel, but for older kernels
 
This node is normally written by the guest kernel, but for older kernels
 
seems not to be. xend must have a work-around; port this work-around to xl.
 
seems not to be. xend must have a work-around; port this work-around to xl.
  +
  +
* AMD NPT performance regression after c/s 24770:7f79475d3de7
  +
owner: ?
  +
Reference: http://marc.info/?l=xen-devel&m=135075376805215
  +
  +
* qemu-upstream: cd-insert and cd-eject not working
  +
http://marc.info/?l=xen-devel&m=135850249808960
 
</pre>
 
</pre>
   
Line 61: Line 75:
 
status (Linux): 3rd draft patches posted.
 
status (Linux): 3rd draft patches posted.
 
status (Xen): RFC submitted
 
status (Xen): RFC submitted
prognosis: Good
+
prognosis: Tech preview only
   
 
* Event channel scalability
 
* Event channel scalability
 
owner: wei@citrix
 
owner: wei@citrix
status: RFC submitted
+
status: RFC v5 submitted
 
prognosis: Good
 
prognosis: Good
 
Increase limit on event channels (currently 1024 for 32-bit guests,
 
Increase limit on event channels (currently 1024 for 32-bit guests,
Line 101: Line 115:
 
owner: anthony@citrix
 
owner: anthony@citrix
 
status: in progress
 
status: in progress
prognosis: ?
+
prognosis: Good
 
qemu-upstream needs a more fully-featured libc than exists in
 
qemu-upstream needs a more fully-featured libc than exists in
 
mini-os. Either work on a minimalist linux-based stubdom with
 
mini-os. Either work on a minimalist linux-based stubdom with
 
glibc, or port one of the BSD libcs to minios.
 
glibc, or port one of the BSD libcs to minios.
   
  +
* Multi-vector PCI MSI (support at least for Dom0)
* Persistent grants for blk (external)
 
owner: roger@citrix
+
owner: jan@suse
status: qemu patches submitted
+
status: not started
prognosis: Good
+
prognosis: Fair
 
* Persistent grants for net
 
owner: annie.li@citrix
 
status: Initial implementation posted
 
prognosis: ?
 
   
 
* Multi-page blk rings (external)
 
* Multi-page blk rings (external)
 
- blkback in kernel roger@citrix
 
- blkback in kernel roger@citrix
 
- qemu blkback
 
- qemu blkback
status: Starting soon
+
status: Overall blk architecture being discussed
 
prognosis: Fair
 
prognosis: Fair
 
* Multi-page net protocol (external)
 
owner: ijc@citrix or annie.li@oracle
 
status: Initial patches posted (by Wei Liu)
 
expand the network ring protocol to allow multiple pages for
 
increased throughput
 
 
* Scalability: 16TiB of RAM
 
owner: jan@suse
 
status: In progress
 
prognosis: Good
 
   
 
* vTPM updates
 
* vTPM updates
 
owner: Matthew Fioravante @ Johns Hopkins
 
owner: Matthew Fioravante @ Johns Hopkins
  +
status: some patches submitted, more in progress
 
prognosis: Good
 
prognosis: Good
status: some patches submitted, more in progress
 
 
- Allow all vTPM components to run in stub domains for increased security
 
- Allow all vTPM components to run in stub domains for increased security
 
- Update vtpm to 0.7.4
 
- Update vtpm to 0.7.4
 
- Remove dom0-based vtpmd
 
- Remove dom0-based vtpmd
 
* Guest EFI booting
 
- status: tianocore in-tree, some build problems.
 
prognosis: Poor.
 
Needs new owner.
 
   
 
* libvirt/libxl integration (external)
 
* libvirt/libxl integration (external)
Line 158: Line 151:
 
See http://libvirt.org/hvsupport.html
 
See http://libvirt.org/hvsupport.html
 
- Features available in xl/Xen but not available in libvirt/Xen
 
- Features available in xl/Xen but not available in libvirt/Xen
 
* Allow XSM to override IS_PRIV checks in the hypervisor
 
owner: Daniel De Graaf
 
status: patches against 4.3-unstable posted, awaiting approval
 
prognosis: Good
 
This makes it possible to allow some user domains limited access to
 
dom0-only hypercalls. This could be used to allow a user-created
 
toolstack domain to administer its own set of VMs instead of relying
 
on dom0's toolstack.
 
   
 
* V4V: Inter-domain communication
 
* V4V: Inter-domain communication
Line 175: Line 159:
 
status (Linux driver): in progress
 
status (Linux driver): in progress
   
* Wait queues for mm
+
* xl PVUSB pass-through for PV guests
  +
* xl PVUSB pass-through for HVM guests
owner: ?
 
status: Draft posted Feb 2012; more work to do.
 
prognosis: Poor
 
 
* xl PVUSB pass-through for both PV and HVM guests
 
 
owner: George
 
owner: George
 
status: ?
 
status: ?
Line 201: Line 181:
 
- make sure USB passthrough with xl works with both qemu-traditional and qemu-upstream.
 
- make sure USB passthrough with xl works with both qemu-traditional and qemu-upstream.
   
  +
* xl: passing more defaults in configuration in xl.conf
* xl QXL Spice support
 
owner: Zhou Peng, Fabio Fantoni
+
owner: ?
  +
There are a number of options for which it might be useful to pass a
prognosis: Fair
 
  +
default in xl.conf. For example, if we could have a default
status: libxl integration completed including videoram setting. For now qxl works only as standard vga.
 
  +
"backend" parameter for vifs, then it would be easy to switch back
To have it full working probably changes/fixes on hvmloader are needed.
 
  +
and forth between a backend in a driver domain and a backend in dom0.
   
 
* Remove hardcoded mobprobe's in xencommons
 
* Remove hardcoded mobprobe's in xencommons
Line 213: Line 194:
   
 
* openvswitch toostack integration
 
* openvswitch toostack integration
owner: roger@citrix
+
owner: ?
prognosis: ?
+
prognosis: Poor
 
status: Sample script posted by Bastian ("[RFC] openvswitch support script")
 
status: Sample script posted by Bastian ("[RFC] openvswitch support script")
  +
- See if we can engage Bastian to do a more fully-featured script?
   
* Rationalized backend scripts (incl. driver domains)
+
* Rationalized backend scripts
 
owner: roger@citrix
 
owner: roger@citrix
 
status: libxl hotplug sumbmitted. Protocol still needs to be finalized.
 
status: libxl hotplug sumbmitted. Protocol still needs to be finalized.
  +
prognosis: Good
  +
  +
* Scripts for driver domains (depends on backend scripts)
  +
owner: roger@citrix
  +
status:
 
prognosis: Fair
 
prognosis: Fair
   
* Xen EFI features
+
* Xen EFI feature: Xen can boot from grub.efi
  +
owner: Daniel Kiper
- dom0 able to make use of EFI run-time services
 
  +
status: Just begun
- Xen able to use EFI boot-time services (?)
 
  +
prognosis: Fair
- Xen able to detect the existence of a signed Linux binary, and leave EFI boot-time services enabled for dom0 to use when appropriate
 
  +
- dom0 able to use boot-time EFI services and disable them when done
 
  +
</pre>
status: No owner.
 
  +
=== For future releases ===
prognosis: Probably not for 4.4
 
  +
<pre>
  +
* Guest EFI booting
  +
- status: tianocore in-tree, some build problems.
  +
prognosis: Poor.
  +
Needs new owner.
  +
  +
* Multi-page net protocol (external)
  +
owner: ijc@citrix or annie.li@oracle
  +
status: Initial patches posted (by Wei Liu)
  +
prognosis: Poor
  +
expand the network ring protocol to allow multiple pages for
  +
increased throughput
  +
  +
* Wait queues for mm
  +
owner: ?
  +
status: Draft posted Feb 2012; more work to do.
  +
prognosis: Poor
  +
  +
* Xen EFI feature: pvops dom0 able to make use of EFI run-time services (external)
  +
owner: Daniel Kiper
  +
status: Just begun
  +
prognosis: Probably not for 4.3 (?)
  +
  +
* Persistent grants for net
  +
owner: annie.li@citrix
  +
status: Initial implementation not getting expected gains; more investigation requried
  +
prognosis: Probably not for 4.3
   
 
* Serial console improvements
 
* Serial console improvements
 
owner: ?
 
owner: ?
 
status: Stalled (see below)
 
status: Stalled (see below)
prognosis: Probably not for 4.4.
+
prognosis: Probably not for 4.3.
 
-xHCI debug port (Needs hardware)
 
-xHCI debug port (Needs hardware)
 
-Firewire (needs hardware)
 
-Firewire (needs hardware)
Line 278: Line 292:
 
prognosis: ?
 
prognosis: ?
   
* IllumOS support
+
* IllumOS (OpenSolaris fork) support
 
owner: Igor Kozhukov
 
owner: Igor Kozhukov
 
status: Stopped
 
status: Stopped

Revision as of 12:14, 6 March 2013

Proposed timeline

We are planning on a 9-month release cycle. Xen 4.2 was released on 17 September 2012. Based on that, below are our estimated dates:

  • Feature Freeze: 25 March, 2013
  • First RC: 6 May 2013
  • Release: 17 June 2013

The RCs and release will of course depend on stability and bugs, and will therefore be fairly unpredictable. The feature freeze may be slipped for especially important features which are near completion.

Last updated: 6 March January 2013

Feature list

Below is a list of features we're tracking for this release. If you have updates to a tracked feature you are working on, or are working on a feature and wish it to be tracked, please let me know.

NB: Several of the items on this list marked (external). These are not part of the Xen tree, but are directly related to our users' experience (e.g., work in Linux or qemu) or to integration with other important projects (e.g., libvirt indings). Since all of these are part of the Xen community work, and comes from the same pool of labor, it makes sense to track the progress here, even though they won't explicitly be released as part of 4.3.

Meanings of prognoses:

  • Excellent: It would be very unlikely for this not to be finished in time.
  • Good: Everything is on track, and is likely to make it.
  • Fair: A pretty good chance of making it, but not as certain
  • Poor: Likely not to make it unless intervention is made
  • Not for 4.3: Self-explanatory


Completed

* Serial console improvements
  -EHCI debug port

* Default to QEMU upstream (partial)
 - pci pass-thru (external)
 - enable dirtybit tracking during migration (external)
 - xl cd-{insert,eject} (external)

* CPUID-based idle (don't rely on ACPI info f/ dom0)

* Persistent grants for blk (external)
 - Linux
 - qemu

* Allow XSM to override IS_PRIV checks in the hypervisor

* Scalability: 16TiB of RAM

* xl QXL Spice support

Bugs

* xl, compat mode, and older kernels
  owner: ?
  Many older 32-bit PV kernels that can run on a 64-bit hypervisor with
  xend do not work when started with xl.  The following work-around seems to
  work:
    xl create -p lightning.cfg
    xenstore-write /local/domain/$(xl domid lightning)/device/vbd/51713/protocol x86_32-abi
    xl unpause lightning
  This node is normally written by the guest kernel, but for older kernels
  seems not to be.  xend must have a work-around; port this work-around to xl.

* AMD NPT performance regression after c/s 24770:7f79475d3de7
  owner: ?
  Reference: http://marc.info/?l=xen-devel&m=135075376805215

* qemu-upstream: cd-insert and cd-eject not working
  http://marc.info/?l=xen-devel&m=135850249808960


Not yet completed

* PVH mode (w/ Linux)
  owner: mukesh@oracle
  status (Linux): 3rd draft patches posted.  
  status (Xen): RFC submitted
  prognosis: Tech preview only

* Event channel scalability
  owner: wei@citrix
  status: RFC v5 submitted
  prognosis: Good
  Increase limit on event channels (currently 1024 for 32-bit guests,
  4096 for 64-bit guests)

* ARM v7 server port
  owner: ijc@citrix
  prognosis: Excellent
  status: Core hypervisor and Linux patches accepted.  Tools patches submitted.

* ARM v8 server port (tech preview)
  owner: ijc@citrix
  status: ?
  prognosis: Tech preview only

* NUMA scheduler affinity
  critical
  owner: dario@citrix
  status: Patches posted
  prognosis: Excellent

* NUMA Memory migration 
  owner: dario@citrix
  status: in progress
  prognosis: Fair

* blktap3
  owner: thanos@citrix
  status: RFCs posted
  prognosis: Not for 4.3

* Default to QEMU upstream
 > Add "intel-hda" to xmexample file, since it works with 64-bit Win7/8
 - qemu-based stubdom (Linux or BSD libc)
   owner: anthony@citrix
   status: in progress
   prognosis: Good
   qemu-upstream needs a more fully-featured libc than exists in
   mini-os.  Either work on a minimalist linux-based stubdom with
   glibc, or port one of the BSD libcs to minios.

* Multi-vector PCI MSI (support at least for Dom0)
  owner: jan@suse
  status: not started
  prognosis: Fair

* Multi-page blk rings (external)
 - blkback in kernel roger@citrix
 - qemu blkback
  status: Overall blk architecture being discussed
  prognosis: Fair

* vTPM updates
  owner: Matthew Fioravante @ Johns Hopkins
  status: some patches submitted, more in progress
  prognosis: Good
  - Allow all vTPM components to run in stub domains for increased security
  - Update vtpm to 0.7.4
  - Remove dom0-based vtpmd

* libvirt/libxl integration (external)
 - Update libvirt to 4.2
   status: Patch accepted
 - Migration
   owner: cyliu@suse (?)
   status: first draft implemented, not yet submitted
   prognosis: ?
 - Itemize other things that need work
   To begin with, we need someone to go and make some lists:
   - Features available in libvirt/KVM not available in libvirt/libxl
     See http://libvirt.org/hvsupport.html
   - Features available in xl/Xen but not available in libvirt/Xen

* V4V: Inter-domain communication
  owner (Xen): jean.guyader@citrix.com
  status (Xen): patches submitted
  prognosis: ?
  owner (Linux driver):  stefano.panella@citrix
  status (Linux driver): in progress

* xl PVUSB pass-through for PV guests
* xl PVUSB pass-through for HVM guests
  owner: George
  status: ?
  prognosis: Fair
  xm/xend supports PVUSB pass-through to guests with PVUSB drivers (both PV and HVM guests).
  - port the xm/xend functionality to xl.
  - this PVUSB feature does not require support or emulation from Qemu.
  - upstream the Linux frontend/backend drivers. Current work-in-progress versions are in Konrad's git tree.
  - James Harper's GPLPV drivers for Windows include PVUSB frontend drivers.

* xl USB pass-through for HVM guests using Qemu USB emulation
  owner: George
  status: Config file pass-through submitted.
  prognosis: Good
  xm/xend with qemu-traditional supports USB passthrough to HVM guests using the Qemu emulated USB controller.
  The HVM guest does not need any special drivers for this feature.
  So basicly the qemu cmdline needs to have:
     -usb -usbdevice host:xxxx:yyyy
  - port the xm/xend functionality to xl.
  - make sure USB passthrough with xl works with both qemu-traditional and qemu-upstream.

* xl: passing more defaults in configuration in xl.conf
  owner: ?
  There are a number of options for which it might be useful to pass a
  default in xl.conf.  For example, if we could have a default
  "backend" parameter for vifs, then it would be easy to switch back
  and forth between a backend in a driver domain and a backend in dom0.

* Remove hardcoded mobprobe's in xencommons
  owner: ?
  status: ?
  prognosis: Poor.

* openvswitch toostack integration
  owner: ?
  prognosis: Poor
  status: Sample script posted by Bastian ("[RFC] openvswitch support script")
  - See if we can engage Bastian to do a more fully-featured script?

* Rationalized backend scripts
  owner: roger@citrix
  status: libxl hotplug sumbmitted.  Protocol still needs to be finalized.
  prognosis: Good

* Scripts for driver domains (depends on backend scripts)
  owner: roger@citrix
  status: 
  prognosis: Fair

* Xen EFI feature: Xen can boot from grub.efi
 owner: Daniel Kiper
 status: Just begun
 prognosis: Fair

For future releases

* Guest EFI booting
 - status: tianocore in-tree, some build problems.
   prognosis: Poor.
   Needs new owner.

* Multi-page net protocol (external)
  owner: ijc@citrix or annie.li@oracle
  status: Initial patches posted (by Wei Liu)
  prognosis: Poor
  expand the network ring protocol to allow multiple pages for
  increased throughput

* Wait queues for mm
  owner: ?
  status: Draft posted Feb 2012; more work to do.
  prognosis: Poor

* Xen EFI feature: pvops dom0 able to make use of EFI run-time services (external)
 owner: Daniel Kiper
 status: Just begun
 prognosis: Probably not for 4.3 (?)

* Persistent grants for net
  owner: annie.li@citrix
  status: Initial implementation not getting expected gains; more investigation requried
  prognosis: Probably not for 4.3

* Serial console improvements
  owner: ?
  status: Stalled (see below)
  prognosis: Probably not for 4.3.
  -xHCI debug port (Needs hardware)
  -Firewire (needs hardware)

* Make storage migration possible
  owner: ?
  status: none
  prognosis: Probably delay until 4.4
  There needs to be a way, either via command-line or via some hooks,
  that someone can build a "storage migration" feature on top of libxl
  or xl.

* Full-VM snapshotting
  owner: ?
  status: none
  prognosis: Probably delay until 4.4
  Have a way of coordinating the taking and restoring of VM memory and
  disk snapshots.  This would involve some investigation into the best
  way to accomplish this.

* VM Cloning
  owner: ?
  status: none
  prognosis: Probably need 4.4
  Again, a way of coordinating the memory and disk aspects.  Research
  into the best way to do this would probably go along with the
  snapshotting feature.

* xl vm-{export,import}
  owner: ?
  status: none
  prognosis: Prob put off until 4.4 (or GSoC project)
  Allow xl to import and export VMs to other formats; particularly
  ovf, perhaps the XenServer format, or more.
  
* Memory: Replace PoD with paging mechanism
  owner: george@citrix
  status: none
  prognosis: Prob put off until 4.4

* PV audio (audio for stubdom qemu)
  owner: stefano.panella@citrix
  status: ?
  prognosis: ?

* IllumOS (OpenSolaris fork) support
  owner: Igor Kozhukov
  status: Stopped