microsoft / microsoft/demikernel

[runtime] Move sgaalloc and sgafree to transport

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enhancement
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
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Forks
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Description

Context

Currently, our SharedDemiRuntime, implements the default memory runtime, so any libOSes that just allocate from the heap can allocate memory from the SharedDemiRuntime. However, for libOSes that need special memory (DPDK, raw sockets), this does not work. Currently they are still allocating memory from the transport through the libOS.

Proposed Solution

There are two ways to fix this. First is that in addition to a runtime, each libOS has a libOS-specific transport that performs low-level tasks like memory allocation. Alternatively, we can add the transport as a generic to the SharedDemiRuntime, but that would make it impossible for two libOSes with different memory allocators to share the same runtime. This may or may not be necessary/useful in the future.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by locating SharedDemiRuntime, sgaalloc, sgafree, and the transport allocation paths in the Rust code. Compare how heap-backed libOSes and special-memory libOSes such as DPDK or raw sockets allocate memory. Done requires an agreed design and moving these allocation operations without preventing libOSes with different allocators from sharing a runtime.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
networking, operating-systems
Issue type
Refactor
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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