1$NetBSD: virtualization,v 1.8 2025/05/19 18:02:53 nia Exp $
2
3NetBSD Virtualization Roadmap
4=============================
5
6This is a small roadmap document, and deals with the virtualization
7side of the operating system.
8
9Features that will be in 6.0:
101. NetBSD/usermode
115. Xen domU migration, suspend and resume
12
13Features which may make future releases:
142. virtualization jails via secmodel
153. iSCSI booting
164. iSCSI device cloning
175. Arm64 (aarch64) support in NVMM
18
19We'll continue to update this roadmap as features and dates get firmed up.
20
21
22Some explanations
23=================
24
251. NetBSD/usermode
26------------------
27
28NetBSD/usermode is a port of NetBSD to a POSIX-compatible user-space,
29with the intention that it should be possible to run the usermode
30version of NetBSD on any POSIX-compatible operating system.  This code
31has been committed to the repository by jmcneill, and updated by reinoud
32and jmcneill. usermode can now boot up to X11, can use a vnc console,
33and is under active development now. This is most definitely in 6.0.
34
35Responsible: jmcneill, reinoud
36
372. Virtualization Jails via secmodel
38------------------------------------
39
40One novel way of creating jails for virtualization is to use a new
41secmodel (part of the kauth framework), to isolate processes into
42jail-based virtual machines. This is the basis of a paper given by
43bad@ at AsiaBSDcon in March 2008. This will not make 6.0
44
45Responsible: bad
46
473. iSCSI booting
48----------------
49
50In order to make Xen domains migration-friendly, the storage that the
51domain uses must be based on some form of network-centric storage, either
52NFS, or a SAN or IP-SAN. For IP-SANs, iSCSI booting will be used. This
53is dependent on the in-kernel iSCSI initiator project completing. This will not make 6.0
54
55Responsible: agc
56
574. iSCSI device cloning
58-----------------------
59
60To minimise the storage requirements for multiple domU booting, using
61a standard root filesystem or block device for the domU is required, along
62with some form of copy-on-write mechanism to preserve any modifications
63that are made. This will not make 6.0
64
65Responsible: agc
66
675. Xen domU migration, suspend and resume
68-----------------------------------------
69
70Xen domU migration is where a domU domain is moved from one dom0 to
71another dom0 on the same vlan (to avoid networking problems, the
72virtual arp address migrates with the domU itself). jym has committed
73this code, and it will be in 6.0
74
75Responsible: jym, bouyer
76
776. Arm64 (aarch64) support in NVMM
78----------------------------------
79
80Initial work was done on porting nvmm(4) to ARMv8.0 by Ryo Shimizu
81and presented at 2023 AsiaBSDCon. Due to his very sad passing, the
82port is now without a maintainer. It would be amazing if someone
83picked up and finished this work.
84
85https://github.com/IIJ-NetBSD/netbsd-src/compare/master...ryo:netbsd-src:wip/aarch64_el2
86
87Alistair Crooks
88Sat Jan 14 11:38:50 PST 2012
89