Unikernels and C1

[JAremko]

Hello. I asked people from unik (https://github.com/emc-advanced-dev/unik/issues/6#issuecomment-273763144) about running rumprun on scaleway C1 hardware. The answer was:

A port to each arm architecture requires very specific details of the arm system, as different arm systems operate completely differently on the hardware level. Given a data-sheet for the SoC they are using a port might be possible, but I did not seem to find one.

Can you provide necessary information? Thanks!

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I don't have experience with unikernels, but this is what made me excited:

• The main selling point of C1 servers is that they have really good price/performance ratio. Unikernels can make it even better because they remove a lot of overheads such as process scheduling.
• it will make performance even more predictable.
• Unikernel app can boot in seconds - good for scaling.
• Greatly reduces attack surface for hackers.
• This is fairly new technology with a big potential and cheap C1 could be great testing ground for pet projects.

There is a caveat with rumprun: Are rump kernels multiprocessor-ready? If it means that only one core on C1 can be used without some kind of virtualization... rumprun would probably be a bad choice for anything else than educational purposes, but rump kernels support SMP so there may be a solution (I have no clue :dog: ).

Originally asked at the scaleway forum.

[meyskens]

I have an old C1 running still using the original Marvell kernel which provides maybe more useful info

Processor   : Marvell PJ4Bv7 Processor rev 2 (v7l)
processor   : 0
BogoMIPS    : 1332.01

processor   : 1
BogoMIPS    : 1332.01

processor   : 2
BogoMIPS    : 1332.01

processor   : 3
BogoMIPS    : 1332.01

Features    : swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp vfpv3 tls 
CPU implementer : 0x56
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant : 0x2
CPU part    : 0x584
CPU revision    : 2

Hardware    : Online Labs C1
Revision    : 0000
Serial      : 0000000000000000