PSARC/2008/596 Block Tap Support for Solaris

[James Carlson]

Mark Johnson writes:
> James Carlson wrote:
> > Artem Kachitchkine writes:
> >> This fasttrack delivers a new virtual disk backend driver for Solaris
> >> which is capable of reading & writing VMWare native (vmdk), VirtualBox
> >> native (vdi), and raw disk files. See the sister vdiskadm fasttrack for
> >> information on how to create and manage these file based virtual disks.
> > 
> > Does this project depend on 'vdiskadm'?  Does that other project
> > depend on this one?
> 
> blktap does have a dependency on vdiskadm, but can
> operate without it. blktap is specific to Xen.
> 
> vdiskadm does not have any dependencies on blktap or
> xVM. It can be leveraged by other efforts (as blktap
> did). There aren't any other projects leveraging
> vdiskadm today.

Would vdiskadm be a useful addition to the system if blktap never
integrates?  (What would it do?)

> > I'd much rather see the whole project described in a single ARC case,
> > if that's at all possible.
> 
> If you feel strongly about it, we can do that... What
> would be the next step for us?

No, I don't feel strongly about it.  I just think it's less confusing
to see one case that sets out the whole project than a series of tiny
interconnected cases that are intended to be worked together.

> >> 4.3.  Interfaces
> > 
> > What about the VMWare native and Virtual Box native disk file formats?
> 
> Yes, I will add this in.  I'll wait to hear back about the merge
> before sending out an update.

OK.  I'm mostly curious about the stability level of those formats.

-- 
James Carlson, Solaris Networking              <james.d.carlson at sun.com>
Sun Microsystems / 35 Network Drive        71.232W   Vox +1 781 442 2084
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