[Haskell-cafe] [ANN] Bindings to Xen Control (xenctrl.h)

[Thomas M. DuBuisson]

Version 0.0.3 was release, which is nearly a complete (and completely
trivial) xenctrl.h binding.  Aside from unit tests and programs, the
main things missing are grant table operations.  There is now a quick
and dirty home page at the wiki [1] and a darcs repo on c.h.o [2].
Comments, requests, and contributions are all encouraged.

TomMD

P.S. I intend to finish the bindings then move onto
design/implementation of the higher level 'System.Xen' module when time
permits.

[1] http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/HsXenCtrl
[2] http://code.haskell.org/~tommd/hsXenCtrl

On Mon, 2008-06-02 at 00:19 -0400, Thomas M. DuBuisson wrote:
> Don,
> I'll throw future work ideas in the next releases cabal.  The most
> obvious doors opened are Haskell rewrites of the current Xen
> infrastructure (virt-install, xm, xend).  Slightly more interesting
> tasks could be (warning: random thoughts):
> 
> 1) HAPPS server that can manage Xen domains (without requiring python
> libs or System.cmd)
> 2) Network or BSD socket based remote management programs in Haskell.
> haxr or session-types might be of use here.
> 3) With the functions that can alter the CPUs availability, more complex
> rules or sharing arrangements could be implemented.  Same concept
> applies to other resources such as PCI and memory allocation.  Seeing as
> Xen doesn't over-commit memory, a guest VM program that detects low/high
> memory situations and reports to the host for policy controlled
> balloning (adjustment of VM allocated memory) would be kind of fun...
> but probably complete overkill for any user of Xen.
> 
> Right now I think the bindings are enough for an 'xm' replacement but
> nothing more.  I've over doubled the number of functions bound just now.
> There will probably be regular releases for the next few weeks as I find
> time.
> 
> Thomas
> 
> On Sat, 2008-05-31 at 23:31 -0700, Don Stewart wrote: 
> > thomas.dubuisson:
> > > All,
> > > I'm just getting started with hsXenCtrl [1] as both a fun way to play
> > > with Xen and become proficient with Haskell FFI.  Once I get my
> > > community.haskell.org account squared away I'll likely setup a public
> > > darcs repo (and a homepage somewhere).
> > > 
> > > As for modules: I intend to expand on the trival FFI bindings in
> > > System.Xen.CBindings and there'll be a higher level interface in
> > > System.Xen (functions will standardize on returning Either or throwing
> > > exceptions, hiding the xc_handle open/close, etc).
> > > 
> > > Typical Disclaimers:
> > > The _only_ thing I've actually done with this, just tonight, is pause /
> > > unpause domains.  API is subject to change!  Only my exact build of Xen
> > > is sure to work, and no promise even then.
> > > 
> > > TomMD
> > > 
> > > [1] http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/hsXenCtrl
> > 
> > Good stuff. Perhaps the synopsis should include a link or description of
> > the typical use cases/ thinks we might achieve?
> > 
> > -- Don