4 ms·

isn't it hard to develop/debug/monitor an application with this approach? I mean you can't just run a debugger as another process and attach to the thing, you c

isn't it hard to develop/debug/monitor an application with this approach? I mean you can't just run a debugger as another process and attach to the thing, you can't run tcpdump or strace, nothing of that sort. Also every bad pointer access will require a reboot, wouldn't it? I mean how do you develop an application with this approach?

rwmj 6y ago
All good questions without a clear answer at the moment. Bad pointers in the application can overwrite kernel data structures because everything runs in a single address space.
- Someone 6y ago
  The unikernel idea is 20-ish years old. I think those good questions cannot be much younger. Because of that, I think “without a clear answer at the moment” is worrisome. Are there partial answers to these questions?
  - rwmj 6y ago
    I mean "without a clear answer" for UKL which is only just over a year old and still in active and early development. There will probably be a way to attach gdb at some point.
marcoperaza 6y ago
You can debug a normal kernel over the network. I imagine you can do the same with a unikernel.
heavenlyblue 6y ago
> Also every bad pointer access will require a reboot, wouldn't it? Hm, isn’t reboot just slightly more complicated than restarting your application? And most of the today’s apps would still require “rebooting” be it a container or a virtual machine
- rwmj 6y ago
  Containers get "rebooted" when they go wrong too, so I'm not sure this is so different.
eyberg 6y ago
One of our engineers spent yesterday debugging a networking issue on Google Cloud for Nanos. Not saying it is easy but at the end of the day it's just engineering work.
throwaway894345 6y ago
Probably best to use a memory safe language so you don’t have bad pointer accesses and generally minimize debugging significantly.
slim 6y ago
I guess you would use an emulator to debug. Which seems like good workflow design to me.

rwmj 6y ago

All good questions without a clear answer at the moment. Bad pointers in the application can overwrite kernel data structures because everything runs in a single address space.

Someone 6y ago
The unikernel idea is 20-ish years old. I think those good questions cannot be much younger. Because of that, I think “without a clear answer at the moment” is worrisome. Are there partial answers to these questions?
- rwmj 6y ago
  I mean "without a clear answer" for UKL which is only just over a year old and still in active and early development. There will probably be a way to attach gdb at some point.

marcoperaza 6y ago

You can debug a normal kernel over the network. I imagine you can do the same with a unikernel.

heavenlyblue 6y ago

> Also every bad pointer access will require a reboot, wouldn't it? Hm, isn’t reboot just slightly more complicated than restarting your application? And most of the today’s apps would still require “rebooting” be it a container or a virtual machine

rwmj 6y ago
Containers get "rebooted" when they go wrong too, so I'm not sure this is so different.

eyberg 6y ago

One of our engineers spent yesterday debugging a networking issue on Google Cloud for Nanos. Not saying it is easy but at the end of the day it's just engineering work.

throwaway894345 6y ago

Probably best to use a memory safe language so you don’t have bad pointer accesses and generally minimize debugging significantly.

slim 6y ago

I guess you would use an emulator to debug. Which seems like good workflow design to me.