Xen 4.2 Release Plan / TODO

[Ian Campbell <Ian.Campbell@citrix.com>]

A day late due to the Xen.org docs day yesterday. Thanks to all who
took part -- next one is July 30!

Plan for a 4.2 release:
http://lists.xen.org/archives/html/xen-devel/2012-03/msg00793.html

The time line is as follows:

19 March        -- TODO list locked down
2 April         -- Feature Freeze
                                                << WE ARE HERE
When It's Ready -- First release candidate
Weekly          -- RCN+1 until release

The updated TODO list follows.

If you are aware of any bugs which must/should be fixed for 4.2 then
please reply to this thread (otherwise I may not remember to pick them
up next week)

Per the release plan a strong case will now have to be made as to why
new items should be added to the list, especially as a blocker, rather
than deferred to 4.3.

hypervisor, blockers:

    * None
 
tools, blockers:

    * libxl stable API -- we would like 4.2 to define a stable API
      which downstream's can start to rely on not changing. Aspects of
      this are:

        * Interfaces which may need to be async:

            * libxl_domain_suspend. Move xc_domain_save/restore into a
              separate process (Ian Jackson, patches reviewed and reposted).

            * libxl_device_{disk,nic,vkb,add,pci}_add (and
              remove). (Roger Pau Monné, patches posted for disk & nic, vkb
              trivial, not looked at pci yet)

        * LIBXL_NIC_TYPE enum names are confusing. (Roger, included in
          calling hotplug scripts series)

        * use libxl_cpumap for b_info.avail_cpus instead of an int,
          this allows setting more than 31 CPUS (Yang Z Zhang, patches
          posted, awaiting a repost)

        * use an enum for VGA interface type (e.g. Cirrus,
          StdVGA). Allows for QXL support (in 4.3). (Zhou Peng,
          awaiting repost)

    * xl compatibility with xm:

        * [BUG] cannot create an empty CD-ROM drive on HVM guest,
          reported by Fabio Fantoni in <4F9672DD.2080902@tiscali.it>

        * does not automatically try to select a (set of) node(s) on
          which to create a VM and pin its vcpus there. (Dario
          Faggioli, posted and reviewed, awaiting a repost)

    * [CHECK] More formally deprecate xm/xend. Manpage patches already
      in tree. Needs release noting and communication around -rc1 to
      remind people to test xl.

    * calling hotplug scripts from xl (Linux and NetBSD) (Roger Pau
      Monné, posted, awaiting review)

    * Block script support -- follows on from hotplug script (Roger
      Pau Monné, "just be a matter of removing an "if"")

    * Adjustments needed for qdisk backend to work on non-pvops Linux.
      "qemu/xendisk: set maximum number of grants to be used" (Jan
      Beulich, patch committed to qemu-xen-upstream, pending for
      qemu-xen-traditional)

    * [CHECK] Confirm that migration from Xen 4.1 -> 4.2 works.

    * [BUG] LIBLEAFDIR et al and libfsimage do the wrong thing on
      modern Debian/Ubuntu w/ multiarch capabilities (Matt Wilson,
      patch posted)

    * [BUG] stub domains broken. HVM_PARAM_DM_DOMAIN needs to reset
      HVM_PARAM_BUFIOREQ_EVTCHN (Ian Campbell, Anthony Perard)

hypervisor, nice to have:

    * PoD performance improvements (George Dunlap, and reviewed
      awaiting repost)

tools, nice to have:

    * xl compatibility with xm:

        * Accept "xl cr /dev/null param=value" to provide all config
          on the command line (W. Michael Petullo, patch posted)

    * libxl stable API

        * libxl_wait_for_free_memory/libxl_wait_for_memory_target.
          Interface needs an overhaul, related to
          locking/serialization over domain create. IanJ to add note
          about this interface being substandard but otherwise defer
          to 4.3.

        * Interfaces which may need to be async:

            * libxl_cdrom_insert. Should be easy once
              disk_{add,remove} done. This is basically a helper
              function and its functionality can be implemented in
              terms of the libxl_disk_* interfaces. If this is not
              done in time we should document as a substandard
              interface which is subject to change post 4.2.

    * xl.cfg(5) documentation patch for qemu-upstream
      videoram/videomem support:
      http://lists.xen.org/archives/html/xen-devel/2012-05/msg00250.html
      qemu-upstream doesn't support specifying videomem size for the
      HVM guest cirrus/stdvga.  (but this works with
      qemu-xen-traditional). (Pasi Kärkkäinen)

    * [BUG] long stop during the guest boot process with qcow image,
      reported by Intel: http://bugzilla.xen.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1821

    * [BUG] vcpu-set doesn't take effect on guest, reported by Intel:
      http://bugzilla.xen.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1822

    * Load blktap driver from xencommons initscript if available, thread at:
      <db614e92faf743e20b3f.1337096977@kodo2>. To be fixed more
      properly in 4.3. (Patch posted, discussion, plan to take simple
      xencommons patch for 4.2 and revist for 4.3)




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