[CentOS-virt] RHEL 5.5 Xen fixes

[Luke S Crawford]

"compdoc" <compdoc at hotrodpc.com> writes:

> When Red Hat picks a release of kernel, xen, kvm, etc., they
> tweak, change, and test it until its 'enterprise' ready. If
> they say you can run a business class server with it, I
> believe them. Based solely on how well centos works.
> 
> Even though RHEL 5.4 doesn't have the newest of anything, it
> does what it does well. Even if I have to put up with fewer
> features or fixes than the current version, I'm leaving it
> alone. 
> 
> I'm sure there are guys that can install newer releases of
> everything needed to run the latest xen, and it might be
> stable, it might not. 

In my experience (several hundred RHEL xen boxes, and maybe 40
xen.org xen boxes over five years.)  until  recently, the xen.org 
xen kernel was quite a bit more stable than the RHEL xen kernel.   
(I mean, it didn't crash, but you'd have weird hangups with things
like xenconsoled dying, or a guest's network suddenly no longer
passing packets.)    

The RHEL xen kernel has been getting markedly better over time, 
though, and the RHEL xen kernel has /much/ better driver support
than the xen.org 2.6.18 kernel.  My next server at prgmr.com
will likely have either the the CentOS xen kernel or the opensolaris
xvm xen kernel rather than the xen.org xen kernel for that reason 
(assuming I can get PVGRUB working and that paravirt ops linux guests 
work, which I believe they do.)  

-- 
Luke S. Crawford
http://prgmr.com/xen/         -   Hosting for the technically adept
http://nostarch.com/xen.htm   -   We don't assume you are stupid.