On rump kernels and the Rumprun unikernel
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On rump kernels and the Rumprun unikernel
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Re: On rump kernels and the Rumprun unikernel
#2> That minimal quality of most of the OS not being present also explains why the container the drivers run in is called a rump kernel
I have seen a number of articles on 'rump' kernels and they always similarly gloss over the name like this. How does that explain? It's not capitalized, so I assume it is not an acronym that stands for something.
Where does this name come from? Is it an acronym, portmanteau, metaphor, what? I have never seen it clearly explained, and I have followed link trails down the rabbit hole through circular references and wikis looking, half a dozen times at least, to no avail.
Can someone please clue me in?
Re: On rump kernels and the Rumprun unikernel
#3> That minimal quality of most of the OS not being present also explains why the container the drivers run in is called a rump kernel I have seen a number of articles on 'rump' kernels and they always similarly gloss over the name like this. How does that explain? It's not capitalized, so I assume it is not an acronym that stands for something. Where does this name come from? Is it an acronym, portmanteau, metaphor,…
Never mind, answered my own question with a little more search query skill:
Runnable Userspace Meta Programs
Re: On rump kernels and the Rumprun unikernel
#4> That minimal quality of most of the OS not being present also explains why the container the drivers run in is called a rump kernel I have seen a number of articles on 'rump' kernels and they always similarly gloss over the name like this. How does that explain? It's not capitalized, so I assume it is not an acronym that stands for something. Where does this name come from? Is it an acronym, portmanteau, metaphor,…
"An anykernel can be instantiated into units which virtualize the bare minimum support functionality for kernel drivers. We call these virtualized kernel instances
rump kernels since they retain only a part of the original kernel."
Page 33, http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss/2012/isbn9789526049175/isbn9789526049...
Re: On rump kernels and the Rumprun unikernel
#5> That minimal quality of most of the OS not being present also explains why the container the drivers run in is called a rump kernel I have seen a number of articles on 'rump' kernels and they always similarly gloss over the name like this. How does that explain? It's not capitalized, so I assume it is not an acronym that stands for something. Where does this name come from? Is it an acronym, portmanteau, metaphor,…
"An anykernel can be instantiated into units which virtualize the bare minimum support functionality for kernel drivers. We call these virtualized kernel instances rump kernels since they retain only a part of the original kernel." Page 33, http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss/2012/isbn9789526049175/isbn9789526049...
This is an example of canonical documentation doing exactly the same thing I just described. I am no more enlightened about what a "rump kernel" is than before I read the paragraph.
Is the implication that we're tossing out the head, neck, loins, bones, organs, etc. and only the delicious bacon of the original kernel is kept? The rump is the part?
Re: On rump kernels and the Rumprun unikernel
#6> That minimal quality of most of the OS not being present also explains why the container the drivers run in is called a rump kernel I have seen a number of articles on 'rump' kernels and they always similarly gloss over the name like this. How does that explain? It's not capitalized, so I assume it is not an acronym that stands for something. Where does this name come from? Is it an acronym, portmanteau, metaphor,…
Never mind, answered my own question with a little more search query skill: Runnable Userspace Meta Programs
I'm going to bet that is a backronym.
If I had to guess, I would go with the idea that you don't need the whole (OS) beast, just its hindquarters (the rump). But don't quote me.
(Re: your subsequent comment: Yeah, just the bacon.)
Re: On rump kernels and the Rumprun unikernel
#7Here's a prediction of how this conversation is going to go:
1. This stuff isolates specific functionality into a hardened component!
2. You can run an existing program as an isolated, hardened component!
3. You can run all of your programs as iso., hard. components! The parts of your system won't be able to step on each other except in well-defined ways!
4a. You mean sort of like old-school process isolation?
4b. Blah, blah, blah, Plan 9, blah...
4c. Blah, blah, any virtual machine like the JVM...
Re: On rump kernels and the Rumprun unikernel
#8> That minimal quality of most of the OS not being present also explains why the container the drivers run in is called a rump kernel I have seen a number of articles on 'rump' kernels and they always similarly gloss over the name like this. How does that explain? It's not capitalized, so I assume it is not an acronym that stands for something. Where does this name come from? Is it an acronym, portmanteau, metaphor,…
> Where does this name come from? Is it an acronym, portmanteau, metaphor, what?
It appears to be a fairly standard use of the English word "rump" in its non-anatomical sense, that is "a small or unimportant remnant of something originally larger."
Re: On rump kernels and the Rumprun unikernel
#9> That minimal quality of most of the OS not being present also explains why the container the drivers run in is called a rump kernel I have seen a number of articles on 'rump' kernels and they always similarly gloss over the name like this. How does that explain? It's not capitalized, so I assume it is not an acronym that stands for something. Where does this name come from? Is it an acronym, portmanteau, metaphor,…
> Where does this name come from? Is it an acronym, portmanteau, metaphor, what? It appears to be a fairly standard use of the English word "rump" in its non-anatomical sense, that is "a small or unimportant remnant of something originally larger."
The classic use is to talk about the Rump Parliament of 1648 in England: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rump_Parliament
Re: On rump kernels and the Rumprun unikernel
#10Regarding unikernels it is fun to combine it with Erlang, since Erlang already has process isolation by default, so it acts as a mini-OS for your application. Process supervision is a bit like the initd (or systemd), it has networking and file system access API,etc...
So there is:
code: https://github.com/cloudozer/ling
Basicly instead of:
hardware|kernel|os|erlangvm|yourcode
it is now:
hardware|xen|ling|yourcode
Not sure how functional it is now. I haven't followed the project in the last year much. But I see some development on github lately.