Support Tiers: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 12:10, 4 November 2020

Note this article is a draft / work in progress / scratch-pad.

It is not official project policy at this time.

Definitions

QEMU features are classified into a number of support tiers, which serve as guidance to users on the long term intentions wrt quality and supportability.

Tier 1 🌞

These are the top class features, suitable for use in a virtualization scenario and expected to be fully functional at all times.

These features MUST satisfy the following criteria at a minimum

Have a nominated maintainer
Be compiled by automated CI systems prior to merge
Be tested by automated CI systems prior to merge
Be written to be robust against malicious guests

The maintainers have discretion to apply additional criteria to specific features.

Tier 2 ⛅

These are generally good features, but have some caveats preventing them achieving the top tier. They may only be suitable for use in an emulation scenario and may not be functional except at time of release.

These features MUST satisfy the following criteria at a minimum

Have a nominated maintainer
Be compiled by automated CI systems prior to merge
Be tested manually by maintainer prior to major releases

The maintainers have discretion to apply additional criteria to specific features.

Tier 3 ⚡

These features are generally not recommended to be used. They may be insecure and can be non-functional at any time, even in releases.

There is no expectation that they have been tested, either by automation or manually by a maintainer.

They are liable to be deprecated and later removed entirely at any time.

Host architectures

Arch	Status	Comments
armv7	Tier 1 🌞	Tested with Linux
aarch64	Tier 1 🌞	Tested with Linux
i686	Tier 1 🌞	Tested with Linux
mips	Tier 2 ⛅	-
mips64	Tier 2 ⛅	-
ppc	Tier 2 ⛅	-
ppc64be	Tier 1 🌞	Tested with Linux
ppc64be	Tier 2 ⛅
riscv32	Tier 2 ⛅	-
riscv64	Tier 2 ⛅	-
s390	Tier 3 ⚡	-
s390x	Tier 1 🌞	Tested with Linux
x86_64	Tier 1 🌞	Tested with Linux, OS-X, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD

Guest CPU emulation

Guest CPU virtualization

Virtualizer	Arch	Tier
KVM	arm7	Tier 1 🌞
KVM	aarch64	Tier 1 🌞
KVM	i686	Tier 1 🌞
KVM	mips	Tier 2 ⛅
KVM	mips64	Tier 2 ⛅
KVM	ppc	Tier 2 ⛅
KVM	ppc64	Tier 1 🌞
KVM	s390x	Tier 1 🌞
KVM	x86_64	Tier 1 🌞
Hax	x86_64	Tier 2 ⛅
HyperV	x86_64	Tier 2 ⛅
WHPX	x86_64	Tier 2 ⛅
HVF	x86_64	Tier 2 ⛅

@@ Line 9: / Line 9: @@
-;Tier 1 🌞
+=== Tier 1 🌞 ===
-: These are the top class features, suitable for use in a virtualization scenario and expected to be fully functional at all times.
-: MUST have a nominated maintainer
-: MUST be compiled by automated CI systems prior to merge
-: MUST be tested by automated CI systems prior to merge
-: MUST be written to be robust against malicious guests
-;Tier 2 ⛅
+These are the top class features, suitable for use in a virtualization scenario and expected to be fully functional at all times.
-: These are generally good features, but have some caveats preventing them achieving the top tier. They may only be suitable for use in an emulation scenario and may not be functional except at time of release.
-: MUST have a nominated maintainer
-: MUST be compiled by automated CI systems prior to merge
-: SHOULD be tested manually by maintainer prior to major releases
-;Tier 3 ⚡
+These features MUST satisfy the following criteria at a minimum
-: These features are generally not recommended to be used. They may be insecure and can be non-functional at any time, even in releases. They are liable to be removed entirely at any time.
+* Have a nominated maintainer
+* Be compiled by automated CI systems prior to merge
+* Be tested by automated CI systems prior to merge
+* Be written to be robust against malicious guests
+The maintainers have discretion to apply additional criteria to specific features.
+=== Tier 2 ⛅ ===
+These are generally good features, but have some caveats preventing them achieving the top tier. They may only be suitable for use in an emulation scenario and may not be functional except at time of release.
+These features MUST satisfy the following criteria at a minimum
+* Have a nominated maintainer
+* Be compiled by automated CI systems prior to merge
+* Be tested manually by maintainer prior to major releases
+The maintainers have discretion to apply additional criteria to specific features.
+=== Tier 3 ⚡ ===
+These features are generally not recommended to be used. They may be insecure and can be non-functional at any time, even in releases.
+There is no expectation that they have been tested, either by automation or manually by a maintainer.
+They are liable to be deprecated and later removed entirely at any time.
 == Host architectures ==