[LSF/MM TOPIC] VM containers

[Rik van Riel]

Hi,

I am trying to gauge interest in discussing VM containers at the LSF/MM
summit this year. Projects like ClearLinux, Qubes, and others are all
trying to use virtual machines as better isolated containers.

That changes some of the goals the memory management subsystem has,
from "use all the resources effectively" to "use as few resources as
necessary, in case the host needs the memory for something else".

These VMs could be as small as running just one application, so this
goes a little further than simply trying to squeeze more virtual
machines into a system with frontswap and cleancache.

Single-application VM sandboxes could also get their data differently,
using (partial) host filesystem passthrough, instead of a virtual
block device. This may change the relative utility of caching data
inside the guest page cache, versus freeing up that memory and
allowing the host to use it to cache things.

Are people interested in discussing this at LSF/MM, or is it better
saved for a different forum?

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