Hyperlight v0.17.0 introduces breaking changes to guest MSR state and path handling
The release of hyperlight v0.17.0, as detailed in the project's GitHub release notes, includes several breaking changes that may impact existing systems…
The release of hyperlight v0.17.0, as detailed in the project's GitHub release notes, includes several breaking changes that may impact existing systems. Notably, guest MSR (Model-Specific Register) state is now saved and restored across snapshots. This requires operators to declare the MSRs a guest depends on via SandboxConfiguration::guest_msrs. Declared MSRs are captured in snapshots and restored, while all other MSRs reset to clean defaults. On KVM, the guest can only access declared MSRs, whereas on MSHV and WHP, this restriction is not enforced. Additionally, filesystem paths are now represented using PathBuf instead of String, affecting APIs such as GuestBinary::FilePath and MultiUseSandbox::generate_crashdump_to_dir. Callers passing a String must convert it using `.into()`. Furthermore, GuestBinary::Buffer now owns its bytes as a Vec, removing lifetime parameters from GuestBinary.
Operators should carefully evaluate the compatibility of their existing snapshots and guest binaries with these changes. Snapshots created with older versions may fail to load due to changes in fixed guest addresses on AArch64 and stricter validation rules for ELF program headers. Systems relying on the previous behavior of MSR handling or string-based path representations may require code modifications or reconfiguration before upgrading. These breaking changes align with a broader trend in projects to enforce stricter state isolation and improve type safety, but they also increase the risk of operational disruptions during upgrades.
Source: github.com
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