Modular Kernel Packaging for Cloud

[Gerd Hoffmann]

  Hi,

> I'm not overly thrilled with having multi-tiered driver packages.
> That leads to major headaches when we start shuffling things around
> from one driver package to another.  The current solution I have
> prototyped is a kernel-core/kernel-drivers split.  Here "core" could
> be analogous to "cloud", but I imagine it will be useful for other
> things.  People wanting to do PCI passthrough can just install the
> kernel-drivers package.

Agree, I don't think it makes much sense to split things into many small
pieces.

> - Do you need/want a firewall (requires iptables, etc)?

I'd say yes by default, but being able to remove it might be useful
(kernel-netfilter subpackage)?

> - Do you need/want NFS or other cloudy storage things (for gluster?)?

I'm personally using NFS for host/guest filesystem sharing, so I'd vote
yes.

> - Do you need/want openvswitch?

I think no.  That's a host side thing and this is about the guest
kernel, right?

> The list of modules I have in my local rawhide KVM guest is below.
> The snd_* related drivers probably aren't necessary.  The btrfs and
> things it depends on can be ignored (unless you plan on switching from
> ext4).

Depends on what is targeted.  Strictly cloud?  Or also someone running
Fedora as a guest in virt-manager / boxes?

I'd tend to include drivers for pretty much everything qemu can emulate.

> uinput                 17708  1

spice guest agent uses this.

> bluetooth             445507  5 bnep
> cfg80211              583354  0

bluetooth+wireless are not needed, dunno why they are loaded.

> snd_hda_codec_generic    66943  1
> snd_hda_intel          56588  4

For the qemu HDA soundcard.  Should be included if desktop usecase
should be covered too.

> qxl                    74078  2

gpu driver.  There are also cirrus + bochs-drm for qemu.
vmware vga has a drm driver too.  They should be included.

> ata_generic            12910  0
> pata_acpi              13038  0

IDE.  Needed.  Qemu can emulate AHCI too, should be included (but I
think that is =y anyway).

Qemu can emulate a bunch of SCSI HBAs.  Don't think we need the drivers
for them (except virtio-scsi).  vmware emulates SCSI HBAs too.  pvscsi
should be included.  Dunno about the older ones, there was for example
some buslogic emulation in older vmware workstation versions ...

USB: Qemu can also emulate uhci + ehci + xhci, should be included.  Also
usb-storage and generic hid support (for the usb tablet).  IIRC most of
this is =y anyway.

NIC: e1000, rtl8139 (qemu), tulip (hyperv), dunno about vmware.  qemu
can also emulate a bunch of other nics such as ne2k, but I think those
are not relevant in practice and not needed.

Of course all paravirtual drivers should be included too, i.e.
  * all virtio (for qemu)
  * all xen frontend (for xen, the backend drivers are for the host
    side and are not needed in the guest).
  * all hyperv (for hyperv)

HTH,
  Gerd