[RFC] Container mini-summit agenda for Sept 3, 2007

[Oren Laadan]

Cedric Le Goater wrote:
> Hello Oren,
> 
> Oren Laadan wrote:
>> Cedric Le Goater wrote:
>>> Hello All,
>>>
>>> Some of us will meet next week for the first mini-summit on containers.
>>> Many thanks to Alasdair Kergon and LCE for the help they provided in 
>>> making this mini-summit happen !
>>>
>>> It will be help on Monday the 3rd of September from 9:00 to 12:45 at LCE
>>> in room D. We also might get a phone line for external participants and, 
>>> if not, we should be able to set up a skype phone.
>>>
>>> Here's a first try for the Agenda. 
>>>
>>> Global items 
>>>
>>> 	 [ let's try to defer discussion after presentation ]  
>>>
>>> * Pavel Emelianov status update 
>>> * Serge E. Hallyn Container Roadmap including  
>>> 	. task containers (Paul Menage)
>>> 	. resource management (Srivatsa Vaddagiri) 
>>>
>>> Special items
>>>
>>> 	[ brainstorm sessions which we would like to focus on ]
>>>
>>> * builing the global container object ('a la' openvz or vserver)
>>> * container user space tools
>>> * container checkpoint/restart  
>>         5. checkpoint/restart
>>                 memory c/r
>>                         (there are a few designs and prototypes)
>>                         (though this may be ironed out by then)
>>                         per-container swapfile?
>>                 overall checkpoint strategy  (one of:)
>>                         in-kernel
>>                         userspace-driven
>>                         hybrid
>>                 overall restart strategy
>>                 use freezer API
>>                 use suspend-to-disk?
>>
>>                 sysvipc
>>                         "set identifier" syscall
>> 		pid namespace
>>                         clone_with_pid()
>> There are other identifiers - pseudo terminals, message queues (mq)
> 
> right, we have plans for developing these if needed (cf 2.)
> 
>> (if you insist on supporting these ...). In general, we need a way
>> to specify the virtual id of a resource that is created. 
> 
> right, pierre peiffer has sent such a pachset for the sysvipc namespace.
> I'm looking at a clone_with_pid() for pid namespace.   
> 
>> I suggest
>> that this should be part of an interface between c/r and containers
>> (see below)
>>
>> 		live migration
>> aka pre-copy (which can be used for live migration but also to reduce
>> the downtime due to a checkpoint).
> 
> yes that's usually what the buzz term "live migration" is used for. 
> 
>> how about adding incremental checkpoint to the list ?
> 
> sure. I think it's a bit early to address these topic but we should have 
> them in mind as some implementations already exist. And we need to gather 
> all the needs.

exists in Zap; many lessons learned ;)

> 
>> I think that it is also important to discuss an interface between c/r and
>> containers, each of which stands on it own. For instance, how to request
>> a specific virtual id (during restart), define required notifiers (to
>> set/unset c/r related data on/off a task), control c/r-related setting of
>> container (e.g. frozen, restarting) that may affect behavior, such as
>> signal handling, and so forth. 
> 
> This is exactly what we want to talk about. 
> 
> We need to identify these C/R needs, talk and agree about possible APIS 
> and then convince the linux subsystem maintainers that they are useful 
> for a large set of C/R solutions based on containers.     
> 
>> Also, such an interface can allow existing c/r implementations to work with 
>> different virtualization implementations as they become available.
> 
> what you call "virtualization" (private identifier namespaces), is I think 
> being covered by the namespaces. These namespaces are not complete (like 
> we're missing a way to reassign ids) but they are going in the right 
> direction, IMO. However, I don't think there will be different 
> "virtualization" implementations in mainline.

I do hope so too. I'm thinking that the current ones may take some time
to converge, and even then there may be out-of-mainline (experimental ?
alternative ?) implementation as it so happens with linux at time :)
In that case defining an interface can be useful (apart from the fact
that you tackle issues when you actually define one).
There is also the other side -- multiple c/r implementations (mainline
or not) that may be geared toward different goals depending on desires
performance, functionality etc.

> 
>> Many of these were discussed in a recent Zap paper present in USENIX:
>> http://www.ncl.cs.columbia.edu/publications/usenix2007_fordist.pdf
>> The paper describes important design choices in Zap (but I'm biased ...).
>> I think it may serve as an appetizer for the discussion :P
> 
> Thanks, I hope we all have time to read it.
> 
> C.