Changes between Version 1 and Version 2 of WorkShop09/VmApps

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davea (IP: 128.32.18.181)
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11/03/09 14:51:15 (3 weeks ago)
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  • WorkShop09/VmApps

    v1 v2  
    1 {{{ 
    2 Present 
    3 ----------- 
     1= VM Apps = 
     2 
     3Notes taken by Ben Segal 
     4 
     5== Present == 
     6 
    47Uwe Beckert / Rechenkraft.net,  Oliver Bock / MPI,  Ignasi Buch / GRIB,  Oscar Diaz / PUCP,  Joseph Emeras / INRIA,  David Garcia Quintas / CERN,  Daniel Lombrana Gonzalez / Univ. Extremadura,  Attila Marosi / SZTAKI,  Nico Mittenzwey / Rechenkraft.net, Jarno Rantala / TUT,  Michael Weber / Rechenkraft.net, and myself (12 in all). 
    58  (Others copied in this email are followers of the BOINC-VM discussions which began at last year's BOINC Workshop in Grenoble). 
    69 
    7 Introduction 
    8 ---------------- 
     10== Introduction == 
     11 
    912Ben introduced the discussion by referring to work done on this topic over the last 3 years, most of which is documented on the BOINC Wiki at: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/VmApps 
    1013 
    1518For additional information on these two projects see: 
    1619 
    17 - VM Controller software (by David Garcia Quintas) at:  http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/VirtualBox 
    18 This is a general-purpose communication layer permitting host processes to control a hypervisor and exchange messages and files with it and all its guest VM's via an XML-RPC interface. It supports an open-ended set of hypervisors, with VirtualBox the first to be fully implemented. 
     20* VM Controller software (by David Garcia Quintas) at:  http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/VirtualBox 
     21  This is a general-purpose communication layer permitting host processes to control a hypervisor and exchange messages and files with it and all its guest VM's via an XML-RPC interface. It supports an open-ended set of hypervisors, with VirtualBox the first to be fully implemented. 
    1922 
    20 - VM Wrapper program (by Jarno Rantala) at:  http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/VmApps 
    21 This is a rewritten BOINC Wrapper, back-compatible with the original Wrapper, but which launches and controls applications inside VM's if supplied with a suitably modified job.xml file. No changes are needed to the BOINC core client or server software. 
     23* VM Wrapper program (by Jarno Rantala) at:  http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/VmApps 
     24  This is a rewritten BOINC Wrapper, back-compatible with the original Wrapper, but which launches and controls applications inside VM's if supplied with a suitably modified job.xml file. No changes are needed to the BOINC core client or server software. 
    2225 
    23 Work To Do 
    24 ---------------- 
     26== Work To Do == 
     27 
    2528The above software has already run an impressive demonstration at CERN, with a Linux BOINC client running jobs for a real physics experiment. 
    2629It requires some more work to turn it into a rugged system supporting all major BOINC client platforms out on the Internet. 
    2831Specific "To Do" lists of work remaining will be posted on the BOINC Wiki shortly. 
    2932 
    30 Proposed collaborations 
    31 --------------------------------- 
     33== Proposed collaborations == 
     34 
     35 
    3236Several members of the BOINC community have offered their collaboration to test and extend the above approach: 
    3337 
    34 - Daniel Lombrana (U. Extremadura):               To test with Windows clients and extend it to support the VMWare hypervisor. 
    35 - INRIA (Derrick Kondo and Joseph Emeras): To test with MacOSX clients and extend support to kQEMU. 
    36 - Attila Marosi (SZTAKI):                To explore its use and development for a PhD thesis project. 
    37 - Jeremy Cowles (UC Berkeley): To help with automatic BOINC deployment of the Python components needed. 
    38 - CERN (Ben Segal and others): To use the system in conjunction with the CernVM image manager to run problems in High Energy Physics. 
     38* Daniel Lombrana (U. Extremadura):               To test with Windows clients and extend it to support the VMWare hypervisor. 
     39* INRIA (Derrick Kondo and Joseph Emeras): To test with MacOSX clients and extend support to kQEMU. 
     40* Attila Marosi (SZTAKI):                To explore its use and development for a PhD thesis project. 
     41* Jeremy Cowles (UC Berkeley): To help with automatic BOINC deployment of the Python components needed. 
     42* CERN (Ben Segal and others): To use the system in conjunction with the CernVM image manager to run problems in High Energy Physics. 
    3943  (This system makes BOINC appear as a "Volunteer Cloud" and is described in a recent paper at: 
    4044   http://www.cern.ch/ben/Ven_abs.pdf ) 
    4145  ( Information on the CernVM project can be found at:  http://cernvm.web.cern.ch/cernvm/ ) 
    4246 
    43 Related areas of interest 
    44 --------------------------------- 
     47== Related areas of interest == 
     48 
    4549During the BOF discussion, several areas of activity of interest for VM applications within BOINC were mentioned: 
    4650 
    47511) Image generation and management 
    4852 
    49 - Attila Marosi (SZTAKI) and Oliver Bock (MPI) have experience with VM image size reduction and management using overlays. 
    50 - A colleague of Attila at SZTAKI (Gabor Kecskemeti) was active in a project to generate VM images, independent of CernVM. 
    51 - Joseph Emeras (INRIA) expressed interest in image generation using CernVM. 
     53* Attila Marosi (SZTAKI) and Oliver Bock (MPI) have experience with VM image size reduction and management using overlays. 
     54* A colleague of Attila at SZTAKI (Gabor Kecskemeti) was active in a project to generate VM images, independent of CernVM. 
     55* Joseph Emeras (INRIA) expressed interest in image generation using CernVM. 
    5256 
    53572) GPU's and VM's 
    5458 
    55 - Oliver Bock (MPI) proposed a "standard VM image" to ease porting problems with GPU drivers on miscellaneous platforms. 
     59* Oliver Bock (MPI) proposed a "standard VM image" to ease porting problems with GPU drivers on miscellaneous platforms. 
    5660 
    57613) Checkpointing 
    5862 
    59 - Michael Weber and Nico Mittenzwey (Rechenkraft.net) proposed using VM's as a way to provide checkpointing for certain BOINC applications which could not be checkpointed by conventional means. 
     63* Michael Weber and Nico Mittenzwey (Rechenkraft.net) proposed using VM's as a way to provide checkpointing for certain BOINC applications which could not be checkpointed by conventional means. 
    6064 
    61 BOINC support for VM applications 
    62 ----------------------------------------------- 
     65== BOINC support for VM applications == 
     66 
    6367Although our approach minimizes required changes to the BOINC infrastructure, there was a short discussion during the BOF report to the full meeting, concerning the need for hypervisor installation on BOINC client nodes before they could be used for VM applications. David Anderson said that "at the top of his list" of developments was a fix whereby an alert would be given to a volunteer attaching to a BOINC-VM project, requesting the installation of the required hypervisor before continuing. 
    6468 
    6569Thanks to all the BOF attendees as well as to all those interested in working in development of VM support for BOINC. 
    66  
    67 }}} 
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