WARNING - OLD ARCHIVES

This is an archived copy of the Xen.org mailing list, which we have preserved to ensure that existing links to archives are not broken. The live archive, which contains the latest emails, can be found at http://lists.xen.org/
   
 
 
Xen 
 
Home Products Support Community News
 
   
 

xen-devel

[Xen-devel] Re: [ PATCH 2.6.16-rc3-xen 3/3] sysfs: export Xen hypervisor

To: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Xen-devel] Re: [ PATCH 2.6.16-rc3-xen 3/3] sysfs: export Xen hypervisor attributes to sysfs
From: Anthony Liguori <aliguori@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 22:26:25 -0600
Cc: "Mike D. Day" <ncmike@xxxxxxxxxx>, xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@xxxxxxxxxx>, Dave Hansen <haveblue@xxxxxxxxxx>, lkml <linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Greg KH <greg@xxxxxxxxx>
Delivery-date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 04:26:58 +0000
Envelope-to: www-data@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In-reply-to: <1140616911.2979.22.camel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
List-help: <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=help>
List-id: Xen developer discussion <xen-devel.lists.xensource.com>
List-post: <mailto:xen-devel@lists.xensource.com>
List-subscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-devel>, <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=subscribe>
List-unsubscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-devel>, <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=unsubscribe>
References: <43FB2642.7020109@xxxxxxxxxx> <1140542130.8693.18.camel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> <20060222123250.GB9295@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> <43FC5B1D.5040901@xxxxxxxxxx> <1140612969.2979.20.camel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> <43FC61C4.30002@xxxxxxxxxx> <20060222131918.GC9295@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> <43FC6A86.90901@xxxxxxxxxx> <1140616911.2979.22.camel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sender: xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
User-agent: Mail/News 1.5 (X11/20060213)
Arjan van de Ven wrote:
On Wed, 2006-02-22 at 08:43 -0500, Mike D. Day wrote:
Heiko Carstens wrote:
On Wed, Feb 22, 2006 at 08:06:12AM -0500, Mike D. Day wrote:

If it's not needed, why include it at all?
Sorry for not being clear. It *is* needed for control tools and agents running in the privileged domain.

but again those tools and agents *already* have a way of talking to the
hypervisor themselves. Why can't they just first ask this info? Why does
that need to be in the kernel, in unswappable memory?
Hypercalls have to be done in ring 0 for security reasons) There has to be some kernel interface for making hypercalls.

The current interface is a ioctl() on a /proc file (which is awful). The ioctl just pretty much passes 5 word arguments to the hypervisor. It was suggested previously here that a hypercall pass-through interface isn't the right approach. One suggestion that came up was a syscall interface.

Also, there are some kernel-level drivers, like the memory ballooning driver, that only exist in the kernel. Controlling the balloon driver requires some sort of interface. That was the original point of this effort (since it's currently exposed as a /proc file). I think it's quite clear that the balloon driver should expose itself through sysfs but I'm not personally convinced that this information (hypervisor version information) ought to be exposed in sysfs.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



_______________________________________________
Xen-devel mailing list
Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>