The CentOS Virt SIG Proposal
SIG Status: Approved
For CentOS board meeting minutes related to the SIG approval, see here. Note that the board gave tentative approval, because governance requires to give ~72 hours for board members not present in a vote to respond. The missing board member (Tru) stated that he is in favour, which means the proposal has been approved.
Board Member Helping Bootstrap : KaranbirSingh
The CentOS Virtualisation Special Interest Group ( virt-sig ) is a group of people coming together to promote and use CentOS Linux as a base platform as a suitable platform for various virtualisation efforts. This includes type-1 and type-2 hypervisors like Xen and KVM, containers and containment based technologies like LXC and other system and process level virtualisation technologies in the future.
The CentOS Virt-SIG wants to build upon the already successfully released Xen4CentOS project; Moving forward the Xen4CentOS codebase will be shifted over to the Virt-SIG resources.
1. Deliverables
The Virt-SIG will aim to deliver a user consumable full stack for technologies that we are working with. This would include delivery, deployment, management, update and patch application ( for full lifecycle management ) of the baseline platform when deployed in sync with a technology curated by the Virt-SIG.
The delivery stage would be executed via multiple online, updated yum repositories to complement ISO based delivery of install media, livecd/livedvd/livdusb media etc.
We will also attempt to maintain user grade documentation around the technologies we curate, along with represent the Virt-SIG at CentOS Dojos and related events in community and vendor neutral events.
We will only work with opensource, redistributable software. However some of the code we want to build and ship might not be mainline accepted as yet, and would be clearly indicated as such.
2. Interface with other SIGs
We anticipate working with the Core SIG to sync over CentOS Linux releases, and also to ensure the code we ship is tested, maintained and managed properly. We also expect to work closely with the Cloud SIG and other platform SIGs around their use of hypervisor technologies.
3. Mechanism to deliver software
The Virt sig will aim to run a virt-specific repository in development, testing and production roles. As and when there is a need to, we will interface with the other SIGs to make sure they are able to consume content provided in the virt-specific repository.
In some cases, there might be a need to run a technology specific repository, as we do now with the Xen4CentOS repos for CentOS Linux 6/x86_64. This would only be done to foster cross SIG code sharing and to make it easier for other efforts to consume the baseline code we curate without needing to buyinto the entire virt-specific stack.
4. Who is involved with the bootstrap
LarsKurth, Xen Project, has offered to run the SIG.
GeorgeDunlap, Xen Project, has offered to help Lars and act as backup for when Lars is unavailable.
KaranbirSingh, CentOS Project, has offered to interface between the SIG and CentOS Project
JohnnyHughes JR, CentOS Project, has offered to curate the sources and facilitate buildsystem, release and patch management for the virt-repositories.
5. Software going into Bootstrap
The primary bootstrap project to be included in the virt-sig is the Xen project's Xen hypervisor. This includes a mainline kernel, with xen specific patches.
Also included is a curated Libvirt stack to work with the Xen Hypervisor and related tools for build time and runtime functionality, otherwise not included in the CentOS Linux repositories.
There is code that might overlap with released packages in CentOS Linux.
6. Future potential collaborators
The Virt-SIG will run with a broad inclusive mindset, with the aim of allowing and encouraging other projects doing work in the virtualisation arena on Linux to come and join. This might be from projects doing hypervisor grade work, ecosystem efforts, management tooling for virtualisation platforms etc.
7. Why this SIG is important
Virtualisation of system resources, processes and environments is a key aspect of systems today and increasingly important into the future as well. The CentOS Project provides a stable base that can be leveraged by many of the projects working to deliver these virtualisation environments and the Virt-SIG aims to be a central curator for such efforts. Bringing these technologies, in an easy to consume format, to the CentOS userbase also has the benefit of making it possible for other efforts ( eg. Cloud SIG ) to consume this content without needing to fork and put in resources.
8. Resources needed
We expect the following from the CentOS Project:
- Buildsystem access to build rpms
- QA resources to test the devel/testing grade code
- release mechanism to push released code publicly
- git repositories to maintain code ( including commit access for SIG contributors )
- wiki and documentation space for content related to the SIG
- bugs and issue tracker project to track user issues and incident reports
- private security email address for issues that need to be kept private
- CentOS Project involvement to liaison with CentOS Core SIG to sync and test with potential CentOS Linux releases
- A dedicated mailing list for users and contributors
In addition to this list, we might also need other resources from time to time in order to execute on the Virt SIG mandate; as and when the requirements come up, we will push them up to the CentOS Board for approval.
We reserve the right to solicit independent sponsorship from third party vendors and projects to further the Virt SIG interests and mandate.
9. Current Status
The Xen4CentOS code, along with supporting Linux Kernel and Libvirt components are considered released-stable in CentOS-6.
10. Bootstrap process
We will aim to migrate the Xen4CentOS content over to the Virt-SIG resources asap, and then work to build to release install media that includes the xen components; We will also aim to document a process that other projects might be able to use in order to join this SIG. As an initial goal, we would also like to start a conversation on what the best mechanism to deliver code might be, so as to not need dedicated repositories per technology.
The Virt-SIG anticipates being able to release code within 14 days of the SIG being approved and resources being allocated.