Re: [Xen-devel] [ARM] Native application design and discussion (I hope)

[Volodymyr Babchuk <vlad.babchuk@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Stefano,

On 10 May 2017 at 21:24, Stefano Stabellini <sstabellini@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I just want to point out that the comparision with tasklets is not
> helpful. Tasklets involve the idle vcpu, which we are trying to step away
> from because it increases irq latency. Tasklets don't provide any
> isolation. The context switch model for the idle vcpu and for EL0 apps
> is different, thus it has a different cost.
>
> I think we shouldn't mention tasklets in this thread any longer.
Yep, you are right. Let's forget about tasklets and focus on EL0 apps.

I want summarize political (opposed to technical) part of the discussion.

We, here at EPAM, viewed EL0 apps primarily as a way to extend
hypervisor. Because when it comes to embedded and automotive, there
arise some ugly things, that are needed at hypervisor level:
TEE mediators (OP-TEE is a good TEE, but for example there is TI's
MSHIELD with deeply proprietary license), device drivers for vcopros,
device drivers for cpufreq, and so on.
Some of this things can't be included in hypervisor due to legal
issues, some - because of code size or complexity. And we can't run
them in stubdoms, because stubdoms are slow for certain use-cases, in
some cases they are insecure, in some cases they just don't fit at
all.

On other hand you consider EL0 apps as ideal host for emulators only.
I can see your point, because XEN was always viewed as hypervisor for
servers.
But servers have different requirements in comparison to embedded
applications. Traditional servers does not use hardware accelerated
video decoders, they don't need to disable cpu's or scale frequencies
to preserve energy (okay, they need to, but it is not as pressing, as
on battery-powered device), there almost no proprietary code (or even
proprietary blobs, argh!).
Looks like virtualization on embedded is the next big thing. Linux
kernel was able to satisfy both parties. I hope that XEN can do the
same.

So, going back to EL0 apps. Honestly, I'd prefer not to use them as
extension mechanism. Yes, they provide isolation, but interfacing with
them will be painful. Probably we can leave them to emulators only
(but as I can see, PL011 emulator is going to be merged right into
hypervisor. Will be there need for other emulators?).
What I really want to ask: what do you thing about old good modules
like ones in linux kernel? There will be no isolation, this is bad.
But:
 - you can load proprietary modules if you want to
 - they are fast
 - you can interface with them in a nativest way possible: just call a function

Artem, could you please comment from your side?

-- 
WBR Volodymyr Babchuk aka lorc [+380976646013]
mailto: vlad.babchuk@xxxxxxxxx

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