Re: [MirageOS-devel] Many-core ARMv8, Mirage & Networking

[Chris Fegan <cfegan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Guillaume,

I’m also curious to see if the Mirage unikernels can run on smaller trusted computing base (TCB) than Linux+KVM or Xen. I’ve been following the L4 done by an Australian research group for quite some time. Over the last few years it has branched along two different paths (commercial, VMM layer: https://cog.systems/okl4-microvisor/) & (academic, provably correct: https://sel4.systems/). Both have good ARM support, but my understanding* is that the okL4 has multi-core support (which would be needed for making the most of the modern ARMv8 chips) is more advanced. 

I’m not a hands on in this area at all, its been more an unsatisfied aesthetic curiosity to think about reducing down to the smallest possible TCB. If you were to explore in this area I think that the art would be not getting bogged down in all the extraneous details. It seems as though the seL4 team has adopted the Android tools to avoid having to maintain this piece themselves (clever): https://wiki.sel4.systems/Hardware/General-ARM

I remember reading the Barrelfish papers quite a while ago, using that as a base would also be interesting. You should talk to Mato, djwillia, Hannes & Richardo (i.e. the experts) about which layer to attack the problem at. I don’t know if you’d start at Solo5 or ocaml-freestanding.

Jitsu [1][2]

Flick [3]

Cheers,

Chris

[1] http://unikernel.org/files/2015-nsdi-jitsu.pdf

[2] https://www.ericsson.com/research-blog/sdn/unikernels-meet-nfv/

[3] https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/atc16/atc16_paper_alim.pdf

* This is not a deep understanding, you should reach out to the seL4 group if you wanted fully correct details :)

On 4 Feb 2017, at 9:43 PM, Guillaume <thouveng@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi Chris,

I'm starting to look at Mirage OS and Solo5. I truly believe that it
can be a great solution for many cores architecture. In term of
security and also in robustness with the OCaml language. I'm starting
to understand how the ukvm + Solo5 + Mirage OS fit together. I'm also
looking for new kernels like http://www.barrelfish.org/ and how they
can be used as a base OS. But I don't know about Jitsu (nor Flick).
Can you give me some links about Jitsu. I will read the paper you
mentioned about Flick. I hope that we will see some reaction on the
mailing list ;-). Are you working on this subject professionally?

Best Regards,
Guillaume


On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 12:02 PM, Chris Fegan <cfegan@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi Folks,
I've been reading a lot of this group's research papers in preparation for
Marrakech. I think
I'm getting a sense for how the various pieces fit together.

The reading has lead me to wonder if there is a "master plan" for linking
MirageOS, FLICK, many-core ARMv8 &
SR-IOV. It seems as though a stack something like the below would be a great
substrate for building high performance and flexible network applications
(that look at the packet payloads, not just headers).

Jitsu
FLICK
Mirage
Solo5
Microkernel | Hypervisor [seL4]|[KVM]
Cavium many-core ARMv8 SoC with Ethernet fabric

Besides the question about the existence of a master plan.
* Are the Flick tools available in source code to study?
* Do you think that Flick will need to remain outside of the Mirage & OCaml
ecosystem to make use
of multicore & DPDK or can you see a path bring it "into the fold"?

[Flick]
https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/atc16/atc16_paper_alim.pdf
[seL4] https://ts.data61.csiro.au/projects/TS/realtime.pml
[KVM] http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Main_Page
[Cavium] http://www.cavium.com/ThunderX_ARM_Processors.html


Thanks,
Chris

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