GSoC'24: Supporting User-provided, Long-lived Environmental Variables for Unikraft Builds

The goal of this project is to improve Unikraft's tooling, more especially, the kraft command-line tool, so that it can dynamically inject user-supplied variables into the build system.

Project Overview#

Unikraft is a highly adaptable cloud-based library operating system with a high degree of modularity. However, developers' ability to add custom variables to the build process is hampered by the rigidity of the current tooling. The goal of this project is to improve Unikraft's tooling, specifically the kraft command-line tool, so that it can dynamically inject user-supplied variables into the build system. Features like changing GCC versions and compile-time settings are included in this. Developers can customize Unikraft builds to meet specific needs by providing dynamic configurations, enhancing flexibility.

Impact of this project on the Unikraft Ecosystem:

• Tooling Framework Improvement
• Integration with KraftKit Configuration System
• Modification of Build Invocation Mechanism
• Default Configuration Setting for CC
• Kraftfile Integration
• Dynamic Injection Using Flags in the Command Line

Progress#

Over the past few weeks, I have been following the instructions given by my mentors in the issue Steps. I have completed two of the steps which include:

1. Test Building an Application via Make: Configured the development environment and successfully built a sample Unikraft application using Make. It was necessary to have a good understanding of how Unikraft builds and also a necessary step for hacking in kraftkit.

2. Exploring Different Toolchain Options Toolchain Testing: I have experimented with various GCC versions and compile-time settings by passing different options to the make command. This gave me a better understanding of how to utilize different toolchain options in Unikraft and would eventually help me with my project.

Next Steps#

For the next steps I aim to get started on the actual implementation of the following:

1. Hardcode-Inject Toolchain Option: Hardcode-inject a toolchain option within the KraftKit make package to evaluate its functionality and determine if redesigning is necessary.

2. Global Toolchain Config Variable: Introduce the Toolchain global Kraftkit config variable to streamline configuration management.

3. Kraftfile Toolchain Element: Introduce the toolchain element in the Kraftfile, which centralizes and simplifies the management of toolchain settings that are ultimately passed to Unikraft's build system.

4. CLI Toolchain Options: Introduce command-line options/commands to set and list toolchain variables, enhancing user control and flexibility.