microsoft / microsoft/openvmm

Define sandbox block roles and clone/resume snapshot tiers

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Dominant language
Rust
Stars
1.9k
Forks
238
Avg merge
1d 15h
Merged PRs (30d)
100

Description

Tracking issue: MicroVM support and private snapshot restore.

Motivation

A snapshot intended for independent clones has different storage and identity
requirements from one intended to resume an instance. Explicit block roles and
capture tiers would prevent a restore from treating mutable scratch data as a
shareable template or applying clone policy to state that requires resume semantics.

Proposed Scope

  • Define supported sandbox block roles and their identity, mutability, ownership,
    and attachment requirements.
  • Define explicit clone and resume capture tiers, recording the selected tier in
    the authoritative snapshot contract.
  • Specify scratch-state identity and publication together with its clone/resume
    behavior, including which data is retained, reset, or privately reconstructed.
  • Validate tier, block roles, attachment identities, and generation policy as one
    coherent capture/restore request.
  • Integrate block-state publication and cleanup with the existing transaction.
  • Document the role/tier compatibility matrix and unsupported combinations.

Acceptance Criteria

  • Tests cover each supported role/tier combination and reject unsupported or
    ambiguous combinations before publication or guest execution.
  • Clone restores do not accidentally share mutable scratch state or write into
    immutable template storage.
  • Resume restores preserve the storage identity and contents promised by their
    tier and reject incompatible replacement attachments.
  • Scratch publication failure leaves no apparently complete snapshot referring
    to incomplete or incorrectly identified block state.
  • VMM tests distinguish clone isolation from resume continuity through actual
    guest block I/O.
  • CLI/configuration documentation states tier selection and its relationship
    to generation IDs and guest readiness.

Dependencies

Non-Goals

This issue does not introduce general-purpose storage replication or a snapshot
of arbitrary external block services. Authoritative RPC exposure of the tiered
operations is a separate integration PR.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

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 reading the linked 00-microvm.md tracking document and dependency issue E03 (4444) to understand the surrounding snapshot and restore contracts. Then map the existing transaction, block-state publication, VMM test, and CLI/configuration documentation entry points; done means the role/tier matrix, validation, isolation and continuity tests, cleanup behavior, and documentation satisfy the listed acceptance criteria.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

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

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