Re: [Xen-API] New API Document and C Bindings

["Daniel P. Berrange" <berrange@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Sep 14, 2006 at 03:36:35PM -0600, Jim Fehlig wrote:
> Ewan Mellor wrote:
> >On Tue, Sep 12, 2006 at 07:16:40PM -0400, Stefan Berger wrote:
> >
> >  
> >>Also I have a question regarding domain-0. How will it be represented? Is
> >>it a VM - the fact that 'guest' is written in the description of the VM
> >>class makes me think that this might not be the case.
> >>    
> >
> >That's a very good question.  My instinct is to say that dom-0 shouldn't
> >be part of the list of domains, and that it should be considered part of
> >the infrastructure.  When we have driver domains, and HVM stub domains,
> >there will be many of these domains, representing different parts of the
> >infrastructure, and it seems to me that these are not the same as
> >"guests" or "VMs".  A VM can be rebooted, migrated (possibly), each time
> >keeping the same VM, but ending up with a different domain.  A VM is
> >ultimately the reason that users are running Xen, and the thing that
> >makes it useful.  For this reason, I don't think that domain 0 is a VM.
> >
> >On the other hand, these things are still useful entities -- you might
> >want to monitor the CPU cost due to each of them, tweak their scheduling
> >parameters, and so on.  So perhaps they are close enough to being a VM
> >that we should put them in there, and cope with the slightly special
> >nature of them as best we can.
> >
> >What do people think?
> >  
> 
> Even though dom0 is part of the infrastructure (or as Gareth pointed out 
> akin to a HMC), it still needs to be managed and many of the management 
> functions are no different from 'normal' guests.  VCPUs can be 
> hot-plugged and pinned to PCPUs, memory can be added / removed, etc.  
> From the perspective of adding / removing resources, dom0 is no 
> different than any other VM.

I agree - having Dom0 represented in exactly same way as any other guest
makes writing management apps very easy because we don't have to special
case code. Sure there some operations you can't apply to Dom0 (such as
suspend, migrate, etc), but equally there are some operations you can't
apply to HVM guests (eg memory ballooning, suspend, migrate). There is
plenty in common between Dom0 and other guests - which Jim lists here -
which makes it a net win IMHO to treat Dom0 just like any other DomU.

Regards,
Dan.
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