Ian Jackson

Ian Jackson
Xen 4.15 RC1 - Please test
Mar 02 2021

Xen 4.15 is in code freeze, and we cut RC1 yesterday. Please help us test it to make sure Xen 4.15 is a high quality release (and that it works well for your use cases!) You can find 4.15 RC1 from git: git clone https://xenbits.xenproject.

Security vs Features
Oct 30 2015

We’ve just released a rather interesting batch of Xen security advisories. This has given rise in some quarters to grumbling around Xen not taking security seriously. I have a longstanding interest in computer security. Nowadays I am a member of the Xen Project Security Team (the team behind security@

Xen Project automatic testing on community infrastructure
Feb 21 2014

Currently the Xen Project’s automatic testing setup runs on a small set of hardware in space borrowed from Citrix. Because it’s on the Citrix network, it’s not possible to give access to other community members. The underlying systems are creaking rather. And the system is too small

Debconf 13
Aug 29 2013

I’ve recently returned from Debconf 13, in Vaumarcus in Switzerland. My colleague Ian Campbell joined me there. Debconf is the annual conference for contributors to Debian, with a few hundred attendees. There’s a fairly standard conference format with a programme of talks and BoF sessions, but the best

Xen is now officially in git
Feb 25 2013

The Xen hypervisor is now officially in git. There’s a single repo with a branch corresponding to each old xen*.hg tree: New git branch Old mercurial tree master xen-unstable.hg stable-4.0 xen-4.0-testing.hg stable-4.1 xen-4.1-testing.hg stable-4.2 xen-4.2-testing.hg staging staging/xen-unstable.

Xen automatic test system "osstest"
Feb 02 2013

We do some automatic testing of the Xen hypervisor and tools branches. These tests form the “push gate” between the “staging” branch of xen-unstable (and the stable releases) and the non-staging branches. Changes are committed to non-staging, and if the tests pass, the test system pushes them through to staging.

xen-tools - a straightforward VM provisioning/installation tool
Aug 31 2012

I’d like talk about the xen-tools package, which is found in Debian-derived distros. It’s a straightforward Xen VM provisioning tool with an unusual but attractive approach. I use it in the Xen.org automated testing system, for installing Debian-derived test VMs. And I run it by hand from

Security vulnerabilities - the coordinated disclosure sausage mill
Jun 19 2012

Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made. – John Godfrey Saxe, 1869. Most open source projects, Xen.org included, do what is called “coordinated disclosure” of security problems. The idea is that we keep security bugs secret until people have had a

libxl event API improvements
May 22 2012

Over the past few months we have been working on improving the API for the libxl library. libxl is to become the base layer for all Xen toolstacks. We intend the version of libxl in Xen 4.2 to have a stable interface, with which we will maintain backward compatibility

Budapest and the Ubuntu Developer Summit
May 17 2011

Last week I was at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Budapest. The best news is: the next release of Ubuntu, oneiric ocelot, will have dom0-capable kernels in main and Xen (4.1, very likely) hypervisor/tools in universe. The plan is to have the hypervisor and tools in main in