State of the Components v2 migration

The Component Framework is one of the key foundations for Fuchsia's usermode runtime environment. The original incarnation of components dates back to the inception of the Fuchsia OS and the initial commits in 2016. The framework has steadily evolved since then.

Components v1 vs. v2

Presently there are two revisions of the Component Framework that exist on Fuchsia, which are referred to as Components v1 and Components v2.

Components v1 is largely comprised of:

• appmgr, a program that manages the runtime environment for v1 components. appmgr implements the root of the v1 components tree, as well as some foundational services such as the Components v1 ELF runner and Loader service.
• sysmgr, a component that manages the so-called "sys" realm. sysmgr is launched by appmgr.
• The .cmx file format for v1 component manifests.
• The fuchsia.sys.* FIDL library.

Components v1 development reached its peak in 2018. In 2019, Fuchsia team began developing Component Framework v2.

Components v2 is largely comprised of:

• Component manager, a program that manages the runtime environment for v2 components. Component manager is now responsible for launching appmgr. appmgr has become a v2 component itself, which serves as the parent of all v1 components still present in the system.
• The .cml file format for v2 component manifests.
• The fuchsia.sys2.* FIDL library.

In addition, both Components v1 and v2 use cmc (component manifest compiler), a build-time host tool that processes all formats of component manifest files.

Incremental progress

The nature of migrations is that they may take a long time and happen in incremental steps. The final step for migrating a component from v1 to v2 typically involves replacing a .cmx file with a .cml file.

Latest status

Last updated: January 2021

A high-level diagram of the system's component topology is shown below:

• v2 components are shown in green.
• v1 components are shown in red.
• Boxes with dashed lines represent components that are only present on some build configurations.

Component manager is one of the initial processes that are started in the system boot sequence. The system startup sequence then launches a number of low-level system components that deal with various responsibilities, including in no particular order:

• Power management: device administration, thermals, power button, etc'.
• System diagnostics: logging, tracing, kernel counters etc'.
• Device driver management.
• Filesystem management.
• Developer tools support, such as Remote Control Service and support for serial debugging.
• Font provider.
• A (growing) subset of the Software Delivery stack.
• A (growing) subset of the Connectivity stack.

In addition, Component manager launches appmgr, itself a v2 component, in order to manage all remaining v1 components in a dedicated sub-realm. As the migration continues, typically components will move from the v1 sub-realm to elsewhere in the component instance topology.

Note: component_manager_sfw is currently included in build configurations that use the Session Framework. This second instance of the component_manager facilitates interoperability between v2 components (required under Session Framework) and legacy v1 components. Once all v1 components have been migrated to v2, the session_manager will become a direct descendent of the root component_manager, and component_manager_sfw can be removed.

Current areas of focus

Last updated: January 2021

Components v2 migrations are happening throughout the system. However there is currently additional focus on:

• The Software Delivery stack of components and associated tests.
• The Netstack2 component and associated tests.
• A subset of legacy sys realm components that are simpler to migrate.