[Xen-devel] Xen 4.3 development update

[George Dunlap <George.Dunlap@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This information will be mirrored on the Xen 4.3 Roadmap wiki page:
 http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_Roadmap/4.3

Now that we've begun freezing, and gotten a number of the major features
in, I think we need to lock down on the new features.

The key goals we're focusing on now, in order, are as follows:
 1. Have a bug-free 4.3 release
 2. Have an awesome 4.3 release
 3. Have a 4.3 release that happens on schedule (ready by June 15th)

At this point I think a feature is going to have to be pretty cool to
merit an exception under #2.

The most important thing in making a case is to answer the question,
"If there are bugs in this patch, will they be discovered before the
June 15h release?"  The second most important thing is to consider the
cost/benefit analysis of bugs that are found: what is the risk of
introducing a bug which will delay the release, vs the benefit it will
have in making the release better?

Please begin to test and report bugs against the release.

= Timeline =

We are planning on a 9-month release cycle.  Based on that, below are
our estimated dates:
* Feature freeze: 25 March 2013
* Code freezing point: 15 April 2013 <== We are here
* First RC: 6 May 2013
* Release: 17 June 2013

The RCs and release will of course depend on stability and bugs, and
will therefore be fairly unpredictable.  Each new feature will be
considered on a case-by-case basis.

Last updated: 22 April 2013

== Completed ==

* Serial console improvements
  -EHCI debug port

* Default to QEMU upstream (partial)
 - pci pass-thru (external)
 - enable dirtybit tracking during migration (external)
 - xl cd-{insert,eject} (external)

* CPUID-based idle (don't rely on ACPI info f/ dom0)

* Persistent grants for blk (external)
 - Linux
 - qemu

* Allow XSM to override IS_PRIV checks in the hypervisor

* Scalability: 16TiB of RAM

* xl QXL Spice support

* Install into /usr/local by default
  owner: Ian Campbell

* openvswitch toostack integration
  To label "tech-preview" unless we get good testing (>10 individuals)

* NUMA scheduler affinity

* vTPM updates

== Bugs fixed since last update ==

* xl, compat mode, and older kernels

== Bugs ==

* Remove hardcoded mobprobe's in xencommons
  owner: Wei Liu
  status: still in discussion

* qemu-upstream: cd-insert and cd-eject not working
  http://marc.info/?l=xen-devel&m=135850249808960
  > They don't work if blktap is used as the backend

* Windows 2003 fails to install in Xen-unstable tip
  > Narrowed down to c/s 2fe82ac11fd078485388fe7c5e8bc3b6ac9185b0
  owner: Jan Beulich
  status: patch to revert rtc changes posted

* AMD NPT performance regression after c/s 24770:7f79475d3de7
  owner: ?
  Reference: http://marc.info/?l=xen-devel&m=135075376805215
  status: Still narrowing down source of performance problem

* cannot free const libxl_event
  owner:
  status: patches posted
  Reference: http://marc.info/?l=xen-devel&m=136568446815486

* Revert Jan's debugging patch (commit bd9be94)
  owner: Jan Beulich

* Race condition in claim hypercall
  owner: Ian Jackson, Konrad Wilk

* Audit changes to shared libraries and ensure we have bumped SONAMEs
as appropriate in this cycle
  owner: Ian Campbell

== Not yet complete ==

* ARM v7 server port (basic)
* ARM v8 server port (basic)
 - Goal: Good Arndale support for 4.3
 - Regressions here will not slip the release, so development is ongoing

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