Unikernels: The Next Stage of Linux’s Dominance (2019)
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Re: Unikernels: The Next Stage of Linux’s Dominance (2019)
#2I'm one of the authors on this paper, so ask away if you have questions.
Re: Unikernels: The Next Stage of Linux’s Dominance (2019)
#3I'm one of the authors on this paper, so ask away if you have questions.
What is a unikernel and why it's good?
Re: Unikernels: The Next Stage of Linux’s Dominance (2019)
#4I'm one of the authors on this paper, so ask away if you have questions.
Only reading the abstract, are you saying a different branch/fork of Linux could be maintained to be a unikernel?
Re: Unikernels: The Next Stage of Linux’s Dominance (2019)
#5I'm one of the authors on this paper, so ask away if you have questions.
Only reading the abstract, are you saying a different branch/fork of Linux could be maintained to be a unikernel?
(Not the author) No, the paper describes a small patch to Linux (~20 lines) + modifications to glibc that enable using Linux as a unikernel. Their goal is to have the modifications upstreamed so that Unikernel linux could be a GCC target etc.
Re: Unikernels: The Next Stage of Linux’s Dominance (2019)
#6I'm one of the authors on this paper, so ask away if you have questions.
What is a unikernel and why it's good?
Yeah I’m kind of amazed they don’t start out with explaining this. Usually there is at least a one-line explanation.
From Wikipedia:
“A unikernel is a specialised, single address space machine image constructed by using library operating systems. A developer selects, from a modular stack, the minimal set of libraries which correspond to the OS constructs required for their application to run. These libraries are then compiled with the application and configuration code to build sealed, fixed-purpose images (unikernels) which run directly on a hypervisor or hardware without an intervening OS such as Linux or Windows.”
Re: Unikernels: The Next Stage of Linux’s Dominance (2019)
#7I'm one of the authors on this paper, so ask away if you have questions.
What is a unikernel and why it's good?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unikernel
Whether it's good depends on what you're doing. UKL will[1] allow you to link a regular server application to Linux and then run that single binary on baremetal or in a hypervisor, and give you a decent performance boost over running the application on top of a normal kernel. How much of a performance boost depends a great deal on the program, almost everything will be a few percent faster, and some applications a lot more.
[1] I'm using the future tense here because although we do run real programs with it today there's still a bunch of development work to do before it works smoothly. The code is: https://github.com/unikernelLinux
Re: Unikernels: The Next Stage of Linux’s Dominance (2019)
#8My gut instinct is always that using traditional kernels in a unikernel way is a bit suboptimal because it doesn’t become a “library operating system” in the same way that Mirage does.
Re: Unikernels: The Next Stage of Linux’s Dominance (2019)
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only reading the abstract, are you saying a different branch/fork of Linux could be maintained to be a unikernel?
(Not the author) No, the paper describes a small patch to Linux (~20 lines) + modifications to glibc that enable using Linux as a unikernel. Their goal is to have the modifications upstreamed so that Unikernel linux could be a GCC target etc.
I also don't get it. "Linux as a unikernel" does not make sense. The entire point of a unikernel is to not have the OS in every container/VM.
Re: Unikernels: The Next Stage of Linux’s Dominance (2019)
#10I'm one of the authors on this paper, so ask away if you have questions.
Only reading the abstract, are you saying a different branch/fork of Linux could be maintained to be a unikernel?
The changes to Linux are fairly small and the aim is to get them upstream. There's also a forked glibc and the changes there are a bit larger, although also hopefully upstreamable.