virtualization revision 1.8 1 1.8 nia $NetBSD: virtualization,v 1.8 2025/05/19 18:02:53 nia Exp $
2 1.1 agc
3 1.1 agc NetBSD Virtualization Roadmap
4 1.1 agc =============================
5 1.1 agc
6 1.1 agc This is a small roadmap document, and deals with the virtualization
7 1.1 agc side of the operating system.
8 1.1 agc
9 1.5 agc Features that will be in 6.0:
10 1.4 agc 1. NetBSD/usermode
11 1.5 agc 5. Xen domU migration, suspend and resume
12 1.5 agc
13 1.5 agc Features which may make future releases:
14 1.4 agc 2. virtualization jails via secmodel
15 1.4 agc 3. iSCSI booting
16 1.4 agc 4. iSCSI device cloning
17 1.8 nia 5. Arm64 (aarch64) support in NVMM
18 1.1 agc
19 1.1 agc We'll continue to update this roadmap as features and dates get firmed up.
20 1.1 agc
21 1.1 agc
22 1.1 agc Some explanations
23 1.1 agc =================
24 1.1 agc
25 1.4 agc 1. NetBSD/usermode
26 1.1 agc ------------------
27 1.1 agc
28 1.7 rillig NetBSD/usermode is a port of NetBSD to a POSIX-compatible user-space,
29 1.4 agc with the intention that it should be possible to run the usermode
30 1.4 agc version of NetBSD on any POSIX-compatible operating system. This code
31 1.5 agc has been committed to the repository by jmcneill, and updated by reinoud
32 1.5 agc and jmcneill. usermode can now boot up to X11, can use a vnc console,
33 1.5 agc and is under active development now. This is most definitely in 6.0.
34 1.1 agc
35 1.5 agc Responsible: jmcneill, reinoud
36 1.1 agc
37 1.4 agc 2. Virtualization Jails via secmodel
38 1.1 agc ------------------------------------
39 1.1 agc
40 1.1 agc One novel way of creating jails for virtualization is to use a new
41 1.1 agc secmodel (part of the kauth framework), to isolate processes into
42 1.4 agc jail-based virtual machines. This is the basis of a paper given by
43 1.5 agc bad@ at AsiaBSDcon in March 2008. This will not make 6.0
44 1.1 agc
45 1.1 agc Responsible: bad
46 1.1 agc
47 1.4 agc 3. iSCSI booting
48 1.1 agc ----------------
49 1.1 agc
50 1.1 agc In order to make Xen domains migration-friendly, the storage that the
51 1.1 agc domain uses must be based on some form of network-centric storage, either
52 1.4 agc NFS, or a SAN or IP-SAN. For IP-SANs, iSCSI booting will be used. This
53 1.5 agc is dependent on the in-kernel iSCSI initiator project completing. This will not make 6.0
54 1.1 agc
55 1.1 agc Responsible: agc
56 1.1 agc
57 1.4 agc 4. iSCSI device cloning
58 1.1 agc -----------------------
59 1.1 agc
60 1.1 agc To minimise the storage requirements for multiple domU booting, using
61 1.1 agc a standard root filesystem or block device for the domU is required, along
62 1.1 agc with some form of copy-on-write mechanism to preserve any modifications
63 1.5 agc that are made. This will not make 6.0
64 1.1 agc
65 1.1 agc Responsible: agc
66 1.1 agc
67 1.4 agc 5. Xen domU migration, suspend and resume
68 1.1 agc -----------------------------------------
69 1.1 agc
70 1.1 agc Xen domU migration is where a domU domain is moved from one dom0 to
71 1.1 agc another dom0 on the same vlan (to avoid networking problems, the
72 1.5 agc virtual arp address migrates with the domU itself). jym has committed
73 1.5 agc this code, and it will be in 6.0
74 1.1 agc
75 1.4 agc Responsible: jym, bouyer
76 1.1 agc
77 1.8 nia 6. Arm64 (aarch64) support in NVMM
78 1.8 nia ----------------------------------
79 1.8 nia
80 1.8 nia Initial work was done on porting nvmm(4) to ARMv8.0 by Ryo Shimizu
81 1.8 nia and presented at 2023 AsiaBSDCon. Due to his very sad passing, the
82 1.8 nia port is now without a maintainer. It would be amazing if someone
83 1.8 nia picked up and finished this work.
84 1.8 nia
85 1.8 nia https://github.com/IIJ-NetBSD/netbsd-src/compare/master...ryo:netbsd-src:wip/aarch64_el2
86 1.8 nia
87 1.1 agc Alistair Crooks
88 1.5 agc Sat Jan 14 11:38:50 PST 2012
89