oxidecomputer / oxidecomputer/propolis

want mechanism for tracking guest vCPU pause time

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#349 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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migration
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
270
Forks
42
Avg merge
4d 5h
Merged PRs (30d)
6

Description

One important piece of data toward tackling #324 is measuring guest vCPU pause time during a migration. In #347 we added some basic instrumentation for measuring migration protocol times on a single host, which gives some data about how long the migrating guest is paused. But the guest pause time must necessarily must be measured across both hosts; we can measure how long the protocol takes, but there may be substantial work on the dest side after protocol completion before the dest can resume vCPUs (such as repairing Crucible volumes).

One option floated by @gjcolombo is having the source transmit performance statistics as a part of the protocol, such that the dest can collect them and export them.

This seems viable, but I also think we will have consider failure cases carefully in such an approach -- e.g., if the migration fails before that data gets transmitted, we still want to have an accurate view of the downtime of the guest.

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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 issues #324 and #347, especially the migration-protocol instrumentation added in #347. Trace how source and destination coordinate vCPU pause and resume across migration, including destination work such as repairing Crucible volumes. Done means guest pause time is accurately tracked across both hosts, including migration failures before statistics are transmitted.

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
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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