6 ms·

Galois releases the Haskell Lightweight Virtual Machine (HaLVM)

96 points by dons 16y ago

chc 16y ago
Looks like Galois' blog has already buckled under the influx of traffic, so here's the Google cache link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=cache:http://www.galois.com/blog/2010/11/30/galois-releases-the-haskell-lightweight-virtual-machine-halvm/&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?client=safari&#...
dons 16y ago
Mirror: http://corp.galois.com/blog/2010/11/30/galois-releases-the-haskell-lightweight-virtual-machine-halv.html http://corp.galois.com/blog/2010/11/30/galois-releases-the-h... We're under very heavy load now.
- SkyMarshal 16y ago
  "Finally, we’d like to give many things to the GHC and Xen communities, without which this work would not be possible." Just an fyi, slight typo there. Probably mean 'thanks' instead of 'things'?
plesn 16y ago
Is it possible to run a web server like, say, Snap, directly on top of it ?
- ezyang 16y ago
  That certainly strikes me as a good idea, although one difficulty is that there needs to be filesystem support first, which as far as I can tell there is not at the moment.
  - plesn 16y ago
    For the server itself or for permanant storage ?
narrator 16y ago
I looked at the source. Apparently they are writing NE2000 drivers in Haskell. It appears that this is more of a platform for writing an OS in Haskell with the help of Xen and not really for web apps.
- lallysingh 16y ago
  Presumably the webapps could come in after there's a normal socket interface (which could also be written in Haskell, atop of a Haskell TCP stack, atop of the NE2k drivers). I'm curious to see what Galois has done with it so far.
ljlolel 16y ago
Very cool. Might it one day be possible to run pure haskell on Xen on AWS?
- eru 16y ago
  Somebody already did it with OCaml, so Haskell shouldn't be too far off.
  - sanxiyn 16y ago
    FYI: OCaml on Xen: http://www.openmirage.org/ http://www.openmirage.org/
- wmf 16y ago
  It should be possible now if HaLVM has proper PV drivers; AWS allows custom kernels and what do they care what language your kernel is written in?
  - blasdel 16y ago
    Is AWS allowing custom kernels for users that are neither paid AMI partners nor big prominent customers?
    - avsm 16y ago
      Yes. Here's the little script that wraps up Mirage kernels into EC2 AMIs. https://github.com/avsm/mirage/blob/master/scripts/ec2.sh https://github.com/avsm/mirage/blob/master/scripts/ec2.sh Unfortunately, I can't figure out the AWS magic to build EBS images directly, which means that you can't use the free m1.micro instances with this script. Help from anyone who knows welcome...
vegai 16y ago
Is there a measurable benefit compared to having the OS stack there? I suppose none of the POSIX stuff are there, right?
- dons 16y ago
  Amongst other things, you can run hundreds of halvm nodes on a typical machine; and the "OS" boots in a fraction of the time it takes to boot a kernel.

96 points by dons 16y ago

chc 16y ago

Looks like Galois' blog has already buckled under the influx of traffic, so here's the Google cache link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=cache:http://www.galois.com/blog/2010/11/30/galois-releases-the-haskell-lightweight-virtual-machine-halvm/&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?client=safari&#...

dons 16y ago

Mirror: http://corp.galois.com/blog/2010/11/30/galois-releases-the-haskell-lightweight-virtual-machine-halv.html http://corp.galois.com/blog/2010/11/30/galois-releases-the-h... We're under very heavy load now.

SkyMarshal 16y ago
"Finally, we’d like to give many things to the GHC and Xen communities, without which this work would not be possible." Just an fyi, slight typo there. Probably mean 'thanks' instead of 'things'?

plesn 16y ago

Is it possible to run a web server like, say, Snap, directly on top of it ?

ezyang 16y ago
That certainly strikes me as a good idea, although one difficulty is that there needs to be filesystem support first, which as far as I can tell there is not at the moment.
- plesn 16y ago
  For the server itself or for permanant storage ?

narrator 16y ago

I looked at the source. Apparently they are writing NE2000 drivers in Haskell. It appears that this is more of a platform for writing an OS in Haskell with the help of Xen and not really for web apps.

lallysingh 16y ago
Presumably the webapps could come in after there's a normal socket interface (which could also be written in Haskell, atop of a Haskell TCP stack, atop of the NE2k drivers). I'm curious to see what Galois has done with it so far.

ljlolel 16y ago

Very cool. Might it one day be possible to run pure haskell on Xen on AWS?

eru 16y ago
Somebody already did it with OCaml, so Haskell shouldn't be too far off.
- sanxiyn 16y ago
  FYI: OCaml on Xen: http://www.openmirage.org/ http://www.openmirage.org/
wmf 16y ago
It should be possible now if HaLVM has proper PV drivers; AWS allows custom kernels and what do they care what language your kernel is written in?
- blasdel 16y ago
  Is AWS allowing custom kernels for users that are neither paid AMI partners nor big prominent customers?
  - avsm 16y ago
    Yes. Here's the little script that wraps up Mirage kernels into EC2 AMIs. https://github.com/avsm/mirage/blob/master/scripts/ec2.sh https://github.com/avsm/mirage/blob/master/scripts/ec2.sh Unfortunately, I can't figure out the AWS magic to build EBS images directly, which means that you can't use the free m1.micro instances with this script. Help from anyone who knows welcome...

vegai 16y ago

Is there a measurable benefit compared to having the OS stack there? I suppose none of the POSIX stuff are there, right?

dons 16y ago
Amongst other things, you can run hundreds of halvm nodes on a typical machine; and the "OS" boots in a fraction of the time it takes to boot a kernel.