If the open source RISC-V CPU architecture is to become a viable option for servers, its software ecosystem will need a solid hypervisor.
Which is why The Register noted in 2021 that a project had commenced to bring the open source Xen hypervisor to RISC-V.
And in 2023 we can report that effort is moving … slowly.
A February 7 post from Oleksii Kurochko, a hypervisor and kernel software engineer at Vates - the organization that created the XCP-ng cut of Xen - explains that the effort has taken a few steps forward and a few steps back.
Kurochko explained that some recent patches to Xen were promising - but also too complex to integrate easily.
"It was decided to start committing and reworking some patches step by step," he wrote.
To date, a patch allowing minimal Xen implementations on RISC-V has been merged, as has a cross-build test.
Also on Kurochko's to-do list:
printk
functionality;asm/bug.h
;xen/common
, etc.Kurochko excitedly added that developing Xen for RISC-V is non-trivial, but rated his work "a great demonstration that porting Xen to RISC-V could also help to make the Xen code base better and more generic. Even if it's more work in the short term, it's better for the project on the long run!"
"Work on porting is still in progress (I'm working full time on it), and it's far from being done," he concluded. "However, there's a lot of momentum going on with our work on RISC-V+Xen, as there is significant support and interest from the Xen community itself and even beyond!" ®
https://www.theregister.com//2023/02/09/xen_risc_v_port_update/
Created by Tan KW | Aug 05, 2024
Created by Tan KW | Aug 05, 2024
Created by Tan KW | Aug 05, 2024