Hi List;
I have a new dev server. As an independent consultant I want to maximize it's use. Some of my clients use RedHat/CentOS 64 bit, others Redhat/CentOS 32bit, some are even using Fedora and Debian.
Here's my thought:
I'd like to install each OS/version into it's own space on the disk. I'm thinking all I have to do is install one OS (say CentOS 64bit) and partition say 20% of the disk. Then once the install is done, boot into the latest fedora disk and do the same, etc.
Is this correct ?
Later I want to add a disk array and allocate a RAID mount point that can be mounted by any of the installed Linux'es when it's active.
Is this do-able ? Easily ?
Thanks in advance...
kevin kempter wrote:
Hi List;
I have a new dev server. As an independent consultant I want to maximize it's use. Some of my clients use RedHat/CentOS 64 bit, others Redhat/CentOS 32bit, some are even using Fedora and Debian.
Here's my thought:
I'd like to install each OS/version into it's own space on the disk. I'm thinking all I have to do is install one OS (say CentOS 64bit) and partition say 20% of the disk. Then once the install is done, boot into the latest fedora disk and do the same, etc.
Is this correct ?
Later I want to add a disk array and allocate a RAID mount point that can be mounted by any of the installed Linux'es when it's active.
Is this do-able ? Easily ?
Yes you can do that, but if you have plenty of RAM you might find it nicer to install the OS you'll run most on the base hardware, then install the free vmware server and install all the others as vmware guests so you can run one or more without having to reboot or shut down the base system. The guest images normally live in ordinary files on the host so they are easy to manage and they can nfs-mount a common share from the host or other system fo access to common space.
On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 1:16 PM, Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
Yes you can do that, but if you have plenty of RAM you might find it nicer to install the OS you'll run most on the base hardware, then install the free vmware server and install all the others as vmware guests so you can run one or more without having to reboot or shut down the base system. The guest images normally live in ordinary files on the host so they are easy to manage and they can nfs-mount a common share from the host or other system fo access to common space.
Nfs-mount? I've been using Samba for the cross-mounting because the server doesn't come with sharable disk mounts like the workstation does. Of course, I'm using Windows in VMWare under CentOS, so the fundamental system differences may come into play, too (I don't know how to nfs-mount a Linux disk from Windows...).
mhr
On Fri, 2008-09-19 at 13:52 -0600, kevin kempter wrote:
I'd like to install each OS/version into it's own space on the disk. I'm thinking all I have to do is install one OS (say CentOS 64bit) and partition say 20% of the disk. Then once the install is done, boot into the latest fedora disk and do the same, etc.
Is this correct ?
Yes, but you should probably use a shared /boot, which means 3 things:
1) Make /boot larger. 350MB should do.
2) ONLY format /boot during the FIRST installation. Each install will throw its kernel in there, so formatting it after would be bad.
3) Change the menu entry name during each install, and don't forget to change the name of the entry added each time you install/update a kernel.
On Fri, Sep 19, 2008, Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams wrote:
On Fri, 2008-09-19 at 13:52 -0600, kevin kempter wrote:
I'd like to install each OS/version into it's own space on the disk. I'm thinking all I have to do is install one OS (say CentOS 64bit) and partition say 20% of the disk. Then once the install is done, boot into the latest fedora disk and do the same, etc.
Is this correct ?
Yes, but you should probably use a shared /boot, which means 3 things:
I used to do this, but quit when systems became able to boot from places on the disk > 1024.
The problem with a shared /boot is that it is very easy for poor installation/update procedures to do wierd things to render the system unbootable.
I much prefer using the free VMware server for development and testing different OS versions. It's far more difficult to screw the pooch using virtual machines, and one can always make snapshots before upgrades or major changes making it easy to undo the changes and try again. I find this invaluable when testing major software installations.
Bill
I much prefer using the free VMware server for development and testing different OS versions. It's far more difficult to screw the pooch using virtual machines, and one can always make snapshots before upgrades or major changes making it easy to undo the changes and try again. I find this invaluable when testing major software installations.
Yes, this seems like a case where virtualisation is a good solution. I've only just started learning to run Xen myself, but the advantages of virtualisation over dual/triple booting etc are pretty clear. As well as the ones you mention, different machines can also be run concurrently and networked.
Quote:
...... Yes, this seems like a case where virtualisation is a good solution. I've only just started learning to run Xen myself, but the advantages of virtualisation over dual/triple booting etc are pretty clear. As well as the ones you mention, different machines can also be run concurrently and networked. ......
FWIW, my job consists primarily of writing tools to support various cluster infrastructures and I rely pretty heavily on virtualization to test my code. I regularly run 5 machines in a single instance to test my stuff. Currently I use VMWare Workstation (the "team" support is a good fit for me, I can add and remove nodes to various clusters using this, easily).
I can these systems in 5GB of RAM but the networking between nodes is a bit slow. It is only noticeable when moving medium-large datasets (+1GB) around.
-geoff
On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 7:34 PM, admin mick@mjhall.org wrote:
Yes, this seems like a case where virtualisation is a good solution. I've only just started learning to run Xen myself, but the advantages of virtualisation over dual/triple booting etc are pretty clear. As well as the ones you mention, different machines can also be run concurrently and networked.
I have recently put virtualized xen CentOS host and guests into production, using the standard tools in CentOS 5 and all works well. Not sure about the VMServer since I haven't tried it, but with xen built into the kernel and what I've seen of the tools such as virt-manager, virt-clone, virt-image, it is very light and simple and should work well for the needs described.
In in this case, I'd suggest formatting the whole disk, with a very large partition to hold xen image files, files that represent the hard-drives of the guests. While disk io in the guests is a bit slower, the flexibility should be worth it, as imaging a guest is no more difficult than a file copy. The guests can access the host's storage via NFS or Samba just as an networked host can.
Brett
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admin -
Bill Campbell -
Brett Serkez -
Geoff Galitz -
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams -
kevin kempter -
Les Mikesell -
MHR