[Devel] OLS paper topics

[Kir Kolyshkin]

Serge E. Hallyn wrote:
> Hi,
>
> here is a list of topics which I believe people are interested in
> writing papers on.  I'm listing names of those who I think are
> interested in writing them.  Sorry if I leave anyone off of a topic
> they're interested in.  However it seems to me it would be best if we
> can agree on one person or two people to drive each topic, so everyone
> doesn't sit around expecting someone else to submit the abstract.
>
> Am I missing any?
>
> mini-summit:
> 	I will submit for a 1-day mini-summit.  Some interesting
> 	remaining topics for the mini-summit would include device
> 	namespaces, ttys and syslog, and lots of checkpoint/restart.
>   

That's right, obviously the title of the mini-summit would be something
like "Linux Kernel Containers".

> 	Does anyone think we don't need one of these at ols?  Or that
> 	we do?
>
> 	Is anyone interested in organizing the summit - coming out
> 	with an agenda, sending out announcements, etc - either
> 	alone or with my help?
>   

Guess I can help a bit with organizing this. To that effort, I have put
up a wiki page:
http://wiki.openvz.org/Containers/Mini-summit_2008

We also need to have some kind of a list of attendees. So far I came
with 12 names listed on that page, please feel free to edit/add more.
> pidns: (Pavel and Suka)
> 	I've heard it called a tutorial, though I think some of the
> 	technical details are interesting in and of themselves.  Its
> 	also an important area to make sure other developers - i.e
> 	people working with flocks or kthreads - understand.
>   
This is the proposal Pavel filed today, it is editable so we can improve
it, please send your suggestion/fixes.

> PID namespaces in the Linux kernel
>
> PID namespaces is a relatively new Linux kernel feature merged in
> 2.6.24 kernel. It is a "view" of a particular set of tasks on the
> system. PID namespaces work in a similar way to filesystem namespaces:
> a process can be accessed in multiple namespaces, but it may have a
> different name in each. It is one of the building blocks for
> containers virtualization, and a prerequisite for
> checkpointing/restart and live migration.
>
> The paper outlines some implementation details, explains user space
> constraints that may seem odd, and discusses the impact of the feature
> on the kernel APIs.
>
> In collaboration with Sukadev Bhattiprolu, IBM.


> 	netns: denis driving, daniel, benjamin
>   

Right, Den Lunev, Daniel Lezcano, Pavel Emelyanov and Benjamin Thery.
Den already filed a proposal for a paper/talk, here is how it looks
like. Again, it is editable, so send your improvements.

> Network namespace for Linux
>
> The paper outlines the effort to implement a network virtualization in
> the Linux kernel. This is a part of on-going effort to bring the
> containers functionality into Linux. A container is an isolated
> user-space partition, which performs like a stand-alone server, with
> multiple containers co-existing on a single Linux box. Containers can
> be used for resource management, network security and in
> high-performance computing.
>
> Making several instances of the Linux network stack, based on the
> namespace concept, is a big challenge, but it is required to build a
> full featured container. We will show how to configure and use a new
> instance of the network stack, how the feature is architectured and
> implemented, and what is the current state of the art.
>
> In collaboration with Daniel Lezcano, IBM, Benjamin Thery, Bull, and
> Pavel Emelyanov, OpenVZ.
>>     

> namespaces status: Pavel and Cedric
> 	There was no ns status update last year it may be of
> 	interest.  Instead of a separate pidns paper, pidns could
> 	also be mentioned here.
>   

What if we organise a BoF, outlining the current status and future
directions. Something like "Linux Kernel Containers development status"
or some better title. I'd say "Containers" here instead of "Namespaces"
(or use "Containers/Namespaces") because containers is easier term from
my PoV.

> namespace entering: Cedric and serge?
> 	This *probably* isn't enough for a full paper.  So it could
> 	go under namespace status paper.  But there is quite a bit
> 	to say just by listing the existing proposed solutions (at
> 	least 4 I can think of offhand) and their shortcomings.
>
> memory c/r: Dave Hansen, serge interested
> 	I suspect many people on this list have their own ideas on
> 	how to go about the checkpoint and restart.  I suppose they
> 	could each write their own paper, or work together on a single
> 	combined paper laying out the possibilities
>   

Actually we already followed that way -- Andrey Mirkin has filed a
paper/talk proposal today, titled "Containers checkpointing and live
migration". Guess Dave (and/or Oren Laadan, and/or Cedric, maybe
somebody else as well) could come with their own talks/papers as well.

Still can't make up my mind if we need a BoF on the subject or not.

> user namespace approaches: serge
>
> cgroups and containers: Paul Menage driving?, Balbir?
> 	A cgroups update could either be its own paper or joined
> 	with the namespaces status paper.
> 	
> 	Paul were you considering a separate paper to discuss
> 	the cgroups and namespace management as laid out in
> 	your Sep 03 2007 email "Thoughts on Namespace / Subsystem
> 	unification"?
>   

Not too much stuff about resource management, i.e. user memory
controller, kernel memory controller, other per-namespace limits etc. Or
is it all covered by cgroups? Or it's not what we are currently targeting?

Regards, Kir.
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