Outreach Program Projects: Difference between revisions

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The Xen Project is a Linux Foundation collaborative project that develops the
The Xen Project is a Linux Foundation collaborative project that develops the
* Xen Hypervisor (for x86 and ARM)
* Xen Hypervisor (for x86 and ARM) - the bulk of this page. IRC channel #xendevel
* Unikraft (see [[#Unikraft]]). IRC channel #unikraft
* The XAPI toolstack
* Mirage OS
* Mirage OS (see [[#Mirage_OS]]). IRC channel #mirage
* We also have some infrastructure, tooling and community related projects that run across '''all''' the sub-projects. These are slightly different from other projects, in terms of skills: see [[#Infra_and_Community]]
The project also has excellent relationships with its upstreams (Linux Kernel, the BSDs, QEMU and other projects) and upstreams such as Linux distributions. This is reflected in the project list, which contains many interesting cross-project development projects for applicants.
The project also has excellent relationships with its upstreams (Linux Kernel, the BSDs, QEMU and other projects) and upstreams such as Linux distributions. This is reflected in the project list, which contains many interesting cross-project development projects for applicants.


=== Finding a project that fits you ===
=== Finding a project that fits you ===
This page lists Xen Project development projects for the FOSS Outreach Program that can be picked up by anyone! If you're interesting in hacking Xen Project code and want to become a part of our friendly developer community this is the place to start! Ready for the challenge?
This page lists Xen Project development projects for Google Summer of Code and Outreachy (formerly the Outreach Program for Women). But projects can be picked up by anyone! If you're interesting in hacking Xen Project code and want to become a part of our friendly developer community this is the place to start! Ready for the challenge?


'''To work on a project:'''
'''To work on a project:'''
* Find a project that looks interesting (or a bug if you want to start with something simple)
* Send an email to the relevant [http://www.xenproject.org/help/mailing-list.html mailing list] (see '''Developer Mailing Lists''') and let us know if you are interested in starting to work or applying on a specific project.
* Send an email to the relevant [http://www.xenproject.org/help/mailing-list.html mailing list] (see '''Developer Mailing Lists''') and let us know if you are interested in starting to work or applying on a specific project.
* Post your ideas, questions, RFCs to the relevant [http://www.xenproject.org/help/mailing-list.html mailing list] sooner than later so you can get comments and feedback.
* Post your ideas, questions, RFCs to the relevant [http://www.xenproject.org/help/mailing-list.html mailing list] sooner than later so you can get comments and feedback.
* An easy way to get started (and show that you can set up the Xen Development Environment, fix an issue, build and test Xen, submit a patch, etc.) is to address a suitable number of [https://www.xenproject.org/help/contribution-guidelines.html#coverity Coverity Scan issues].
* '''Small Contribution Requirement''': Outreachy requires that youfulfil the [https://wiki.gnome.org/Outreachy#Make_a_Small_Contribution Make a Small Code Contribution Requirement]. This is not strictly necessary for GSoC, but a small contribution to the project during the application period gives you an advantage


'''You have your own project idea: no problem!'''
'''You have your own project idea: no problem!'''
* If you have your own project idea, outline what you are trying to do on the mailing list. If you know the right list, post your project idea on [http://www.xenproject.org/help/mailing-list.html mailing list]. Failing that post on xen-devel and we can redirect you to the right list. Make sure you add '''OPW 2014''' to the subject line.
* If you have your own project idea, outline what you are trying to do on the mailing list. If you know the right list, post your project idea on [http://www.xenproject.org/help/mailing-list.html mailing list]. Failing that post on xen-devel and we can redirect you to the right list. Make sure you add '''Outreachy <round>''' or '''GSoC <year>''' to the subject line.


'''It is a good idea to ...'''<br>
'''It is a good idea to ...'''<br>
The Xen Project has also participated in the Gnome Outreach Program for Women (OPW) and Google Summer of Code (GSoC) in the past. One of the things we learned by participating in these programs is that you will be more successful, happier and get more out of participating in internship programs, if you do a bit of prep-work before writing an application. Here is some stuff you can do:
The Xen Project has participated in Outreachy and Google Summer of Code (GSoC) in the past. One of the things we learned by participating in these programs is that you will be more successful, happier and get more out of participating in internship programs, if you do a bit of prep-work before writing an application. Here is some stuff you can do:
* Contact your mentor early and get to know him or her
* Contact your mentor early and get to know him or her
* Start hanging out on our IRC channel. You can use the #xen-opw IRC channel on freenode.net for now
* Start hanging out on our IRC channels (#xendevel, #unikraft, #mirage)
* You may want to ask the mentor for a couple of small bitesize work-items (such as reviewing someones patch, a bitesize bug, ...) and start communicating on the relevant [http://www.xenproject.org/help/mailing-list.html mailing list]. That helps you become familiar with our development process, the mentor and other community members and will help you chose the right project and help you decide whether the Xen project is for you.
* You may want to ask the mentor for a couple of small bitesize work-items (such as reviewing someones patch, a bitesize bug, ...) and start communicating on the relevant [http://www.xenproject.org/help/mailing-list.html mailing list]. That helps you become familiar with our development process, the mentor and other community members and will help you chose the right project and help you decide whether the Xen project is for you.
* Note that quite a few Xen maintainers used to be GSoC participants once. Feel free to ask community dot manager at xenproject dot org to put you in touch with them if you have questions about their experience.
* Note that quite a few Xen maintainers used to be GSoC participants once. Feel free to ask community dot manager at xenproject dot org to put you in touch with them if you have questions about their experience.
* Any work you submit before applying for a project should be based on xen-unstable development tree, if the project is Xen Hypervisor and/or tools related. Linux kernel related patches should be based on upstream kernel.org Linux git tree (latest version). XAPI and Mirage OS patches should be based on the right codeline too. Check out the '''navigation by audience''' section on the left to find resources.
* Any work you submit before applying for a project should be based on xen-unstable development tree, if the project is Xen Hypervisor and/or tools related. Linux kernel related patches should be based on upstream kernel.org Linux git tree (latest version). Mirage OS patches should be based on the right codeline too. Check out the '''navigation by audience''' section on the left to find resources.


==== More resources ====
==== More resources ====
Line 59: Line 62:
=== GSoC Projects that were accepted in 2014 ===
=== GSoC Projects that were accepted in 2014 ===
-->
-->



== List of peer reviewed Projects ==
== List of peer reviewed Projects ==
=== Domain support (PVOPS and Linux) ===


=== Xen Hypervisor Userspace Tools ===
=== Xen Hypervisor Userspace Tools ===

{{project
{{project
|Project=golang consumer for the `xenlight` golang package
|Project=CPU/RAM/PCI diagram tool
|Date=01/30/2014
|Date=28/01/2020
|Verified=17/02/2022
|Contact=Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@citrix.com>
|Contact=George Dunlap <george.dunlap@citrix.com>, IRC nick: gwd
|Difficulty=Moderate, to Extremely Difficult (depending on which area of the problem you choose to tackle)
|List=Make sure you CC xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org on all communications; tag mails with [GSoC] or [Outreachy] as appropriate#
|Skills=Understanding of PC server hardware, Understanding of ACPI/SMBios tables, Linux scripting or kernel hacking (depending on which area of the problem you choose to tackle)
|IRC=#xendevel
|Desc=It is often useful in debugging kernel, hypervisor or performance problems to understand the bus topology of a server. This project will create a layout diagram for a server automatically using data from ACPI Tables, SMBios Tables, lspci output etc. This tool would be useful in general Linux environments including Xen and KVM based virtualisation systems.
|Difficulty=Straightforward
|Skills=Familiarity with the Go language
|Desc=The `xenlight` golang package consists of golang bindings for libxl, a robust library designed to be able to drive all necessary interaction with a Xen system; it's the library on which both xl and libvirt-xen are written.


The golang bindings are nearing completion, and so this project would be to create an in-tree consumer of those bindings; partly as an example, partly to be useful. Ideas include:
There are many avenues for extension such as labelling relevant hardware errata, performing bus throughput calculations etc.
|Outcomes=A tool is created that can either run on a live Linux system or offline using captured data to produce a graphical representation of the hardware topology of the system including bus topology, hardware device locations, memory bank locations, etc. The tool would be submitted to a suitable open-source project such as the Xen hypervisor project or XCP.
|GSoC=yes}}


* A simple `host status` daemon which would present information about the host: memory available, domains running, and so on
{{project
* A 'system stress tester', which would perform random operations (create / destroy / migrate / suspend VMs, create / destroy / migrate cpupools, &c) in quick succession to test the robustness of the system
|Project=KDD (Windows Debugger Stub) enhancements
* A re-implementation of the 'xl' command in Golang, suitable to be used as a drop-in replacement in our test system
|Date=01/30/2014
* A 'wrapper' library to make creation of guests simple and straightforward, with a minimum of boilerplate
|Contact=Paul Durrant <paul.durrant@citrix.com>
|Difficulty=Medium
|Skills=C, Kernel Debuggers, Xen, Windows
|Desc=kdd is a Windows Debugger Stub for Xen hypervisor. It is OSS found under http://xenbits.xen.org/gitweb/?p=xen.git;a=tree;f=tools/debugger/kdd;h=fd82789a678fb8060cc74ebbe0a04dc58309d6d7;hb=refs/heads/master
kdd allows you to debug a running Windows virtual machine on Xen using standard Windows kernel debugging tools like WinDbg. kdd is an external debugger stub for the windows kernel.
Windows can be debugged without enabling the debugger stub inside windows kernel by using kdd. This is important for debugging hard to reproduce problems on Windows virtual machines that may not have debugging enabled.


Applicants are encouraged to come up with their own ideas as well.
Expected Results:
# Add support for Windows 8 (x86, x64) to kdd
# Add support for Windows Server 2012 to kdd
# Enhance kdd to allow WinDbg to write out usable Windows memory dumps (via .dump debugger extension) for all supported versions
# Produce a user guide for kdd on Xen wiki page


|Outcomes=A useful project or library which exercises and demonstrates how to use the `xenlight` golang package.
Nice to have: Allow kdd to operate on a Windows domain checkpoint file (output of xl save for e.g.)
|Outcomes=Code is submitted to xen-devel@xen.org for inclusion in the xen-unstable project.
|GSoC=yes}}

=== Mirage OS ===

{{project
|Project=Create a tiny VM for easy load testing
|Date=01/30/2014
|Contact=Dave Scott <dave.scott@eu.citrix.com>
|Difficulty=Medium
|Skills=OCaml
|Desc=The Mirage OS framework (see http://xenproject.org/developers/teams/mirage-os.html, http://www.openmirage.org/) can be used to create tiny 'unikernels': entire software stacks which run directly on the Xen hypervisor. These VMs have such a small memory footprint (16 MiB or less) that many of them can be run even on relatively small hosts. The goal of this project is to create a specific unikernel that can be configured to generate a specific I/O pattern, and to create configurations that mimic the boot sequence of Linux and Windows guests. The resulting unikernel will then enable cheap system load testing.

The first task is to generate an I/O trace from a VM. For this we could use 'xen-disk', a userspace Mirage application which acts as a block backend for xen guests (see http://openmirage.org/wiki/xen-synthesize-virtual-disk). Following the wiki instructions we could modify a 'file' backend to log the request timestamps, offsets, buffer lengths.

The second task is to create a simple kernel based on one of the MirageOS examples (see http://github.com/mirage/mirage-skeleton). The 'block' example shows how reads and writes are done. The previously-generated log could be statically compiled into the kernel and executed to generate load.
|Outcomes=1. a repository containing an 'unikernel' (see http://github.com/mirage/mirage-skeleton)
2. at least 2 I/O traces, one for Windows boot and one for Linux boot (any version)
|GSoC=yes}}

{{project
|Project=Fuzz testing Xen with Mirage
|Date=28/11/2013
|Contact=Anil Madhavapeddy <anil@recoil.org>
|Skills=OCaml, Xen
|Difficulty=medium
|Desc=
Mirage OS (see http://xenproject.org/developers/teams/mirage-os.html, http://www.openmirage.org/) is a type-safe unikernel written in OCaml which generates highly specialised "appliance" VMs that run directly on Xen without requiring an intervening guest kernel. We would like to use the Mirage/Xen libraries to fuzz test all levels of a typical cloud toolstack. Mirage has low-level bindings for Xen hypercalls, mid-level bindings for domain management, and high-level bindings to XCP for cluster management. This project would build a QuickCheck-style fuzzing mechanism that would perform millions of random operations against a real cluster, and identify bugs with useful backtraces.

The first task would be to become familiar with a specification-based testing tool like Kaputt (see http://kaputt.x9c.fr/). The second task would be to choose an interface for testing; perhaps one of the hypercall ones.
[[GSoC_2013#fuzz-testing-mirage]]
|Outcomes=1. a repo containing a fuzz testing tool; 2. some unexpected behaviour with a backtrace (NB it's not required that we find a critical bug, we just need to show the approach works)
|GSoC=yes
|GSoC=yes
}}
}}


<br>
{{project
|Project=Mirage OS web stack testing
|Date=25/02/2014
|Contact=Anil Madhavapeddy <anil@recoil.org>
|Skills=OCaml, shell scripting
|Difficulty=medium
|Desc=
MirageOS has an emerging web toolstack that's broken up as a series of libraries -- for example, Cohttp, Uri, Cow, Ipaddr, RSS and Cowabloga. This project will get you familiar with them by building a protocol testing framework that can generate traffic using off-the-shelf tools such as httperf, and evaluate the results vs applications such as Apache or Nginx.


=== Xen Toolstack ===
|Outcomes=1. a test harness for HTTP; 2. some results of the evaluation using the test harness
|GSoC=yes
}}


<br>
== List of projects that need more work ==
{{Anchor|Unreviewed Project Ideas}}

=== Domain support (PVOPS and Linux) ===
{{project
|Project=Implement Xen PVSCSI support in xl/libxl toolstack
|Date=01/12/2012
|Contact=Pasi Karkkainen <pasik@iki.fi>
|GSoC=Yes
|Desc=
xl/libxl does not currently support Xen PVSCSI functionality. Port the feature from xm/xend to xl/libxl. Necessary operations include:
* Task 1: Implement PVSCSI in xl/libxl, make it functionally equivalent to xm/xend.
* Send to xen-devel mailinglist for review, comments.
* Fix any upcoming issues.
* Repeat until merged to xen-unstable.
* See above for PVSCSI drivers for dom0/domU.
* Xen PVSCSI supports both PV domUs and HVM guests with PV drivers.
* More info: http://wiki.xen.org/xenwiki/XenPVSCSI
{{Comment|[[User:Lars.kurth|Lars.kurth]] 14:14, 23 January 2013 (UTC):}} Should be suitable, but desc needs. Rate in terms of challenges, size and skill. Also kernel functionality is not yet upstreamed. Maybe Suse kernel.
}}


=== Xen Hypervisor ===
=== Xen Hypervisor ===


{{project
{{project
|Project=Xen on ARM: Performance Counters Virtualization
|Project=Introducing PowerClamp-like driver for Xen
|Date=01/22/2013
|Date=01/02/2019
|Verified=01/28/2020
|Contact=George Dunlap <george.dunlap@eu.citrix.com>
|Difficulty=Hard
|Desc=
|Contact=Stefano Stabellini <sstabellini@kernel.org>, IRC nick: sstabellini; Julien Grall <julien@xen.org>, IRC nick: julieng
PowerClamp was introduced to Linux in late 2012 in order to allow users to set a system-wide maximum
|List=Make sure you CC xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org on all communications; tag mails with [GSoC] or [Outreachy] as appropriate
power usage limit. This is particularly useful for data centers, where there may be a need to
|IRC=#xendevel
reduce power consumption based on availability of electricity or cooling. A [http://lwn.net/Articles/528124/ more complete writeup]
|Skills=Good C, assembly, and kernel programming skills
is available at LWN.

These same arguments apply to Xen. The purpose of this project would be to implement a similar functionality in Xen,
and to make it interface as well as possible with the Linux PowerClamp tools, so that the same tools could be used
for both. [[GSoC_2013#powerclamp-for-xen]]
|GSoC=Yes
|GSoC=Yes
|Desc=Performance counters are a family of ARM registers used to measure performance. Today they are not virtualized by Xen, they are just trapped and implemented as read-as-zero/write-ignore, see xen/arch/arm/arm64/vsysreg.c and xen/arch/arm/arm64/vsysreg.c.
}}


This project is about properly virtualizing these registers, so that guests can use them to measure their own performance. It involves saving and restoring the performance counters registers in Xen during VM context switch.
=== Xen Hypervisor Userspace Tools ===
{{project
|Project=Refactor Linux hotplug scripts
|Date=15/11/2012
|Contact=Roger Pau Monné <[mailto:roger.pau@citrix.com roger.pau@citrix.com]>
|Desc=
Current Linux hotplug scripts are all entangled, which makes them really difficult to understand or modify. The reason of hotplug scripts is to give end-users the chance to "easily" support different configuration for Xen devices.


|Outcomes=Xen guests can use performance counters.
Linux hotplug scripts should be analized, providing a good description of what each hotplug script is doing. After this, scripts should be cleaned, putting common pieces of code in shared files across all scripts. A Coding style should be applied to all of them when the refactoring is finished.

[[GSoC_2013#linux-hotplug-scripts]]
|GSoC=Yes
}}
}}


<br>
{{project
|Project=XL to XCP VM motion
|Date=15/11/12
|Contact=[mailto:ian.campbell@citrix.com Ian Campbell]
|Desc=Currently [[XL|xl]] (the toolstack supplied alongside Xen) and [[XAPI|xapi]] (the XCP toolstack) have very different concepts about domain configuration, disk image storage etc. In the XCP model domain configuration is persistent and stored in a data base while under xl domain configuration is written in configuration files. Likewise disk images are stored as VDIs in Storage Repositories while under xl disk images are simply files or devices in the dom0 filesystem. For more information on xl see [[XL]]. For more information on XCP see [[XCP Overview]].


=== Unikraft ===
This project is to produce one or more command-line tools which support migrating VMs between these toolstacks.
'''Verified: 15/02/2021'''


Unikraft is a unikernel build system that enables developers to build
One tool should be provided which takes an xl configuration file and details of an XCP pool. Using the XenAPI XML/RPC interface It should create a VM in the pool with a close approximation of the same configuration and stream the configured disk image into a selected Storage Repository.
light-weight services starting from a highly customizable library base.
(for more information see [http://unikraft.org here]).


We keep an up-to-date list of Unikraft-related projects as issues on github [https://github.com/unikraft/unikraft/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Akind%2Fproject+-label%3Alifecycle%2Factive here]. If you're interested in one of them, or have project suggestions, please write us at <simon.kuenzer@neclab.eu> and <felipe.huici@neclab.eu>, cc minios-devel@lists.xenproject.org.
A second tool should be provided which performs the opposite operation, i.e. give a reference to a VM residing in an XCP pool it should produce an XL compatible configuration file and stream the disk image(s) our of Xapi into a suitable format.


<br>
These tools could be reasonably bundled as part of either toolstack and by implication could be written in either C, Ocaml or some other suitable language.


=== Mirage OS ===
The tool need not operate on a live VM but that could be considered a stretch goal.


==== Several different projects (follow link) ====
An acceptable alternative to the proposed implementation would be to implement a tool which converts between a commonly used VM container format which is supported by XCP (perhaps [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Virtualization_Format OVF] or similar) and the xl toolstack configuration file and disk image formats.


For Mirage OS, please check out the [http://canopy.mirage.io/tags/help%20needed list of Mirage OS projects where help is needed]. If you are interested in one of these projects, please e-mail [http://lists.xenproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mirageos-devel mirageos-devel@lists.xenproject.org] and CC the mentor from the page (the project will contain a link to the mentor's GitHub account, which normally contains an email address and IRC information). You can also ask questions on the #mirage [http://xenproject.org/help/irc.html IRC] channel and usually find mentors on there.
[[GSoC_2013#xl-to-xcp-vm-motion]]
|GSoC=Yes
}}


<br>
{{project
=== XAPI ===
|Project=Advanced Scheduling Parameters
|Date=01/22/2013
|Contact=George Dunlap <george.dunlap@eu.citrix.com>
|Desc=
The credit scheduler provides a range of "knobs" to control guest behavior, including CPU weight and caps. However,
a number of users have requested the ability to encode more advanced scheduling logic. For instance, "Let this VM max out for 5 minutes out of any given hour; but after that, impose a cap of 20%, so that even if the system is idle he can't an unlimited amount of CPU power without paying for a higher level of service."


No projects at this stage.
This is too coarse-grained to do inside the hypervisor; a user-space tool would be sufficient. The goal of this project would
be to come up with a good way for admins to support these kinds of complex policies in a simple and robust way.


<br>
|GSoC=Yes
}}


=== Infra and Community ===


We also have some infrastructure, tooling and community related projects that run across all the sub-projects. These are slightly different from other projects, in terms of skills and working with the community. Please check extra information below the project.


=== PCI Pass-through improvements ===



<!--
{{project
{{project
|Project=Add more FreeBSD testing to osstest
|Project=Allowing guests to boot with a passed-through GPU as the primary display
|Date=01/22/2013
|Date=10/02/2017
|Verified=28/01/2019
|Contact=George Dunlap <george.dunlap@eu.citrix.com>
|Difficulty=Moderate
|Desc=
|Contact=Roger Pau Monné <roger.pau@citrix.com>, IRC nick: royger; Ian Jackson <ian.jackson@eu.citrix.com>, IRC nick: Diziet
One of the primary drivers of Xen in the "consumer market" of the open-source world is the ability to
|List=Make sure you CC xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org on all communications; tag mails with [GSoC] or [Outreachy] as appropriate
pass through GPUs to guests -- allowing people to run Linux as their main desktop but easily play
|IRC=#xendevel
games requiring proprietary operating systems without rebooting.
|Skills=perl and shell (to write tests for osstest), FreeBSD system administration: pxe install, complete setup, build from sources, generate installer media.

GPUs can be easily passed through to guests as secondary displays, but as of yet cannot be passed
through as primary displays. The main reason is the lack of ability to load the VGA BIOS from the card into the guest.

The purpose of this project would be to allow HVM guests to load the physical card's VGA bios, so that the guest can
boot with it as the primary display.

[[GSoC_2013#gpu-passthrough]]
|GSoC=Yes
|GSoC=Yes
|Desc=The current Xen Project test system only has minimal support for FreeBSD: it's able to test a FreeBSD guest, but it's only able to partially setup a FreeBSD host or perform a Xen compilation on FreeBSD. This project aims to solve this by providing better integration of FreeBSD into the Xen test system (osstest).
}}


First tasks will involve writing support for building the 3rd-party packages needed for the Xen build using poudriere and creating a custom pkg repository. Next steps will involve building FreeBSD guest images from source and integrating with the xen-unstable flight.
{{project
|Project=Improve PCIe Advanced Error Reporting (AER) handling for passed-through devices
|Date=03/04/2014
|Difficulty=Medium-High
|Skills=Understanding of PC server hardware, PCIe, C
|Contact=Matt Wilson <msw@amazon.com>
|Outcomes=Patches for libxl, qemu, and perhaps xen-pciback posted
|Desc=Today the xen-pciback driver handles an AER event for passed-through PCI devices. If the device is assigned to a PV guest, it uses xenstore to request a reset from xen-pcifront. If the device is assigned to a HVM guest, the toolstack is notified and is expected to take corrective action.


Initial support for FreeBSD host has been merged into osstest, but it's incomplete.
The toolstack support for taking corrective action is only implemented in [http://xenbits.xen.org/gitweb/?p=xen.git;a=blob;f=tools/python/xen/xend/server/pciif.py;h=27c1b75cfcf2695740e57bde557d2ee04c4d7322;hb=HEAD#l459 xend], not libxl. For HVM guests ideally, the AER event would be propagated into the guest through the device model (qemu) so that the driver inside the guest can take reset actions.
|Outcomes=Be able to setup a FreeBSD host from osstest tracking upstream FreeBSD sources and perform a Xen build on it. Also generate FreeBSD guest images and integrate them into osstest testing.

|GSoC=Yes
}}
}}
-->


<br>
=== XAPI ===


== New Project Ideas ==
== New Project Ideas ==
Line 308: Line 208:


=== Choosing Projects ===
=== Choosing Projects ===
We have a bi-weekly mentor meeting overlooked by our program management team, which are a core team of 2-3 mentors and a program administrator. This group will work with mentors to ensure that project proposals are of good quality and whether mentors are engaging with the program management team and particpants in the weeks before the application period ends.
We have a bi-weekly mentor meeting overlooked by our program management team, which are a core team of 2-3 mentors and a program administrator. This group will work with mentors to ensure that project proposals are of good quality and whether mentors are engaging with the program management team and particpants in the weeks before the application period ends.

[[Category:GSoC]]
[[Category:GSoC 2014]]
[[Category:Developers]]
[[Category:Index]]
[[Category:Project]]
[[Category:Archived]]
[[Category:Transient]] <!-- as if not maintained it becomes stale -->

Latest revision as of 16:06, 17 February 2022

The Xen Project is a Linux Foundation collaborative project that develops the

  • Xen Hypervisor (for x86 and ARM) - the bulk of this page. IRC channel #xendevel
  • Unikraft (see #Unikraft). IRC channel #unikraft
  • Mirage OS (see #Mirage_OS). IRC channel #mirage
  • We also have some infrastructure, tooling and community related projects that run across all the sub-projects. These are slightly different from other projects, in terms of skills: see #Infra_and_Community

The project also has excellent relationships with its upstreams (Linux Kernel, the BSDs, QEMU and other projects) and upstreams such as Linux distributions. This is reflected in the project list, which contains many interesting cross-project development projects for applicants.

Finding a project that fits you

This page lists Xen Project development projects for Google Summer of Code and Outreachy (formerly the Outreach Program for Women). But projects can be picked up by anyone! If you're interesting in hacking Xen Project code and want to become a part of our friendly developer community this is the place to start! Ready for the challenge?

To work on a project:

  • Send an email to the relevant mailing list (see Developer Mailing Lists) and let us know if you are interested in starting to work or applying on a specific project.
  • Post your ideas, questions, RFCs to the relevant mailing list sooner than later so you can get comments and feedback.
  • An easy way to get started (and show that you can set up the Xen Development Environment, fix an issue, build and test Xen, submit a patch, etc.) is to address a suitable number of Coverity Scan issues.
  • Small Contribution Requirement: Outreachy requires that youfulfil the Make a Small Code Contribution Requirement. This is not strictly necessary for GSoC, but a small contribution to the project during the application period gives you an advantage

You have your own project idea: no problem!

  • If you have your own project idea, outline what you are trying to do on the mailing list. If you know the right list, post your project idea on mailing list. Failing that post on xen-devel and we can redirect you to the right list. Make sure you add Outreachy <round> or GSoC <year> to the subject line.

It is a good idea to ...
The Xen Project has participated in Outreachy and Google Summer of Code (GSoC) in the past. One of the things we learned by participating in these programs is that you will be more successful, happier and get more out of participating in internship programs, if you do a bit of prep-work before writing an application. Here is some stuff you can do:

  • Contact your mentor early and get to know him or her
  • Start hanging out on our IRC channels (#xendevel, #unikraft, #mirage)
  • You may want to ask the mentor for a couple of small bitesize work-items (such as reviewing someones patch, a bitesize bug, ...) and start communicating on the relevant mailing list. That helps you become familiar with our development process, the mentor and other community members and will help you chose the right project and help you decide whether the Xen project is for you.
  • Note that quite a few Xen maintainers used to be GSoC participants once. Feel free to ask community dot manager at xenproject dot org to put you in touch with them if you have questions about their experience.
  • Any work you submit before applying for a project should be based on xen-unstable development tree, if the project is Xen Hypervisor and/or tools related. Linux kernel related patches should be based on upstream kernel.org Linux git tree (latest version). Mirage OS patches should be based on the right codeline too. Check out the navigation by audience section on the left to find resources.

More resources

Quick links to changelogs of the various Xen related repositories/trees: Please see XenRepositories wiki page!

Before to submit patches, please look at Submitting Xen Patches wiki page and the relevant Xen Project team page. This will contain more information.

If you have new ideas, suggestions or development plans let us know and we'll update this list!

Aspiring Participants

  • Please contact the mentor and CC the most appropriate mailing list
  • Get a bite-size task from the mentor before the application starts
  • If you feel comfortable with an idea, please put your name to an idea using the following format
{{project
...
|Review=(delete as addressed)
* {{Comment|~~~~:}} I am interested in this idea ... 
                    (note that you may also want to link to the e-mail thread with the mentor)
  • You will need to request write access to the wiki by filling out this form


Outreach Program Project Ideas

List of peer reviewed Projects

Xen Hypervisor Userspace Tools

golang consumer for the `xenlight` golang package

Date of insert: 28/01/2020; Verified: 17/02/2022; GSoC: yes
Technical contact: George Dunlap <george.dunlap@citrix.com>, IRC nick: gwd
Mailing list/forum for project: Make sure you CC xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org on all communications; tag mails with [GSoC] or [Outreachy] as appropriate#
IRC channel for project: #xendevel
Difficulty: Straightforward
Skills Needed: Familiarity with the Go language
Description: The `xenlight` golang package consists of golang bindings for libxl, a robust library designed to be able to drive all necessary interaction with a Xen system; it's the library on which both xl and libvirt-xen are written.

The golang bindings are nearing completion, and so this project would be to create an in-tree consumer of those bindings; partly as an example, partly to be useful. Ideas include:

  • A simple `host status` daemon which would present information about the host: memory available, domains running, and so on
  • A 'system stress tester', which would perform random operations (create / destroy / migrate / suspend VMs, create / destroy / migrate cpupools, &c) in quick succession to test the robustness of the system
  • A re-implementation of the 'xl' command in Golang, suitable to be used as a drop-in replacement in our test system
  • A 'wrapper' library to make creation of guests simple and straightforward, with a minimum of boilerplate
Applicants are encouraged to come up with their own ideas as well.
Outcomes: A useful project or library which exercises and demonstrates how to use the `xenlight` golang package.


Xen Toolstack


Xen Hypervisor

Xen on ARM: Performance Counters Virtualization

Date of insert: 01/02/2019; Verified: 01/28/2020; GSoC: Yes
Technical contact: Stefano Stabellini <sstabellini@kernel.org>, IRC nick: sstabellini; Julien Grall <julien@xen.org>, IRC nick: julieng
Mailing list/forum for project: Make sure you CC xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org on all communications; tag mails with [GSoC] or [Outreachy] as appropriate
IRC channel for project: #xendevel
Difficulty: Hard
Skills Needed: Good C, assembly, and kernel programming skills
Description: Performance counters are a family of ARM registers used to measure performance. Today they are not virtualized by Xen, they are just trapped and implemented as read-as-zero/write-ignore, see xen/arch/arm/arm64/vsysreg.c and xen/arch/arm/arm64/vsysreg.c. This project is about properly virtualizing these registers, so that guests can use them to measure their own performance. It involves saving and restoring the performance counters registers in Xen during VM context switch.
Outcomes: Xen guests can use performance counters.


Unikraft

Verified: 15/02/2021

Unikraft is a unikernel build system that enables developers to build light-weight services starting from a highly customizable library base. (for more information see here).

We keep an up-to-date list of Unikraft-related projects as issues on github here. If you're interested in one of them, or have project suggestions, please write us at <simon.kuenzer@neclab.eu> and <felipe.huici@neclab.eu>, cc minios-devel@lists.xenproject.org.


Mirage OS

Several different projects (follow link)

For Mirage OS, please check out the list of Mirage OS projects where help is needed. If you are interested in one of these projects, please e-mail mirageos-devel@lists.xenproject.org and CC the mentor from the page (the project will contain a link to the mentor's GitHub account, which normally contains an email address and IRC information). You can also ask questions on the #mirage IRC channel and usually find mentors on there.


XAPI

No projects at this stage.


Infra and Community

We also have some infrastructure, tooling and community related projects that run across all the sub-projects. These are slightly different from other projects, in terms of skills and working with the community. Please check extra information below the project.




New Project Ideas

Please add new project ideas here, following

Conventions for Projects and Project Mentors

Rules and Advice for Adding Ideas

  • Be creative
  • Add projects into New Project Ideas or improve projects in Project Ideas that Need Review or more work through review comments.
  • Use the {{GSoC Project}} template to encode ideas on this page. Please read the Template Documentation before you do so.
  • Be specific: what do you want to be implemented; if at all possible provide an indication of size and complexity as described above to make it easier for an applicant to choose ideas
  • If you are willing to mentors those ideas, add your name and email to the idea.
  • Aspiring mentors should introduce themselves on the most appropriate Xen Project mailing list

Peer Review Goals

We strongly recommend and invite project proposers and project mentors to review each others proposals. When you review, please look out for

  • Can an intern get going and started with the information in the project description
  • Are any unstated assumptions in the proposal, is there undefined terminology, etc. in the proposal
  • Can the project completed in 3 months (assume that one month is needed for preparation)
  • Does the project meet Google Summer of Code goals, which are
    • Create and release open source code for the benefit of all
    • Inspire young developers to begin participating in open source development
    • Help open source projects identify and bring in new developers and committers
    • Provide interns the opportunity to do work related to their academic pursuits (think "flip bits, not burgers")
    • Give interns more exposure to real-world software development scenarios (e.g., distributed development, software licensing questions, mailing-list etiquette)

Peer Review Conventions

The {{GSoC Project}} template used to encode project listings, contains some review functionality. Please read the Template Documentation before you add a template, also please use the conventions below to make comments. 

|Review=(delete as addressed)
* {{Comment|~~~~:}} Comment 1
* {{Comment|~~~~:}} Comment 2

Choosing Projects

We have a bi-weekly mentor meeting overlooked by our program management team, which are a core team of 2-3 mentors and a program administrator. This group will work with mentors to ensure that project proposals are of good quality and whether mentors are engaging with the program management team and particpants in the weeks before the application period ends.

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