[Xen-devel] Xen 4.2 TODO / Release

[Ian Campbell <Ian.Campbell@xxxxxxxxxx>]

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
Mid/Late May    -- First release candidate
Weekly          -- RCN+1 until it is ready

It seems pretty obvious at this stage that we are not going to be
doing an RC in Mid/Late May. The big remaining items are being
actively worked on and are quite well understood. I've also done a
pass through the tools blockers list and have proposed moving some
items to the Nice To Have list.

The updated TODO list follows. 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.

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)

Other than that I think we should consider the freeze to be in full
effect and the bar to entry to 4.2 to be very high.

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:

        * libxl_wait_for_free_memory/libxl_wait_for_memory_target.
          Interface needs an overhaul, related to
          locking/serialization over domain create (deferred to
          4.3). IanJ to add note about this interface being
          substandard but otherwise defer to 4.3. Will move to Nice To
          Have's next week.

        * libxl_*_path. Majority made internal, only configdir and
          lockdir remain public (used by xl). (IanC, to consider
          moving the two reamining into xl instead of libxl, will move
          to Nice To Have's next week)

        * Interfaces which may need to be async:

            * libxl_domain_suspend. Move xc_domain_save/restore into a
              separate process (IanJ, RFC posted, work ongoing).

            * libxl_device_{disk,nic,vkb,add,pci}_add (and
              remove?). Roger Pau Monnà fixes disk as part of hotplug
              script series and adds infrastructure which should make
              the others trivial. (Roger, WIP)

            * libxl_cdrom_insert. Should be easy once
              disk_{add,remove} done. Nobody is looking at this? This
              is basically a helper function and its functionality can
              be implemented in terms of the libxl_disk_*
              interfaces. We could therefore consider marking this
              function as substandard and subject to change in the
              future. We could also consider simply moving it into xl
              as a helper function and revisting for 4.3.

    * xl compatibility with xm:

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

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

        * `cpus=[2,3]` to select specific mapping vcpu0-->pcpu2,
          vcpu1-->pcpu3 as xm does. (Dario Faggioli, DONE)

    * [BUG] Spurious CPU params error message when starting a domain,
      e.g. "Cpu weight out of range, valid values are within range
      from 1 to 65535". (Ian C, patches posted, need final decision on
      "one struct" or "multiple struct" libxl API for sched params)

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

    * Domain 0 block attach & general hotplug when using qdisk backend
      (need to start qemu as necessary etc) (Stefano S, patches
      posted, people seem happy bar the code motion)

    * Improved Hotplug script support (Roger Pau MonnÃ, patches
      posted, nearing completion?)

    * Block script support -- follows on from hotplug script (Roger
      Pau MonnÃ)

    * Adjustments needed for qdisk backend to work on non-pvops Linux.
      (Jan Beulich)

hypervisor, nice to have:

    * PoD performance improvements (George Dunlap)

    * IRQ problem for which debugging code got added by c/s
      24707:96987c324a4f. I have a tentative adjustment to this which
      I would hope to at least eliminate the bad consequences of
      crashing the hypervisor (converting the unsolicited
      PIC-originated IRQ into a spurious one). I'll submit as soon as
      I got to test this a little, particularly also on an old box
      without APIC. (Jan Beulich, DONE)

tools, nice to have:

    * xl compatibility with xm:

        * None remain

    * libxl: Add API to retrieve domain console tty (Bamvor Jian
      Zhang, patches posted)

    * 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 KÃrkkÃinen)



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