Do people have wet underwear for nothing over XEN?
See http://www.redhat.com/promo/qumranet/
<snip> Q: Will Red Hat continue to support and contribute to Xen?
A: Yes. Red Hat will support Xen until at least 2014 (seven years after the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5). We are committed to insulating our customers from changes in the infrastructure components and this is why we created an open virtualization management standard (the Libvirt API). This standard is provided in Red Hat products and has been adopted by a number of other vendors (Sun, Novell, Ubuntu, etc.). It allows customers and ISVs to build virtualization management applications, processes and configurations based on a stable API, independent of the underlying virtualization technology.
Red Hat continues to be an active member of the Xen development community and is currently working on further integration work between the Xen hypervisor and the Linux kernel.
</snip>
As far as CentOS is concerned saying Xen is deprecated is jumping the gun. CentOS ships with Xen and as long as upstream supports it, CentOS by extension supports it.
Regards, Vandaman.
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 10:45 AM, Vandaman vandaman2002-sk@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
Do people have wet underwear for nothing over XEN?
See http://www.redhat.com/promo/qumranet/
As far as CentOS is concerned saying Xen is deprecated is jumping the gun. CentOS ships with Xen and as long as upstream supports it, CentOS by extension supports it.
Thank you for the clarification.
What isn't clear from reading the above referenced material is if Xen will be included in future CentOS releases.
Brett
Brett Serkez wrote:
What isn't clear from reading the above referenced material is if Xen will be included in future CentOS releases.
If it's included in future RHEL releases then it will be included in future CentOS releases.
Red Hat says they will support Xen for the duration of the RHEL 5 support cycle. They haven't specified whether or not Xen will be an option in RHEL 6, at least I haven't seen a statement around that yet. If it's not in RHEL6 it won't be shipped in CentOS 6 (maybe it will be made available via 3rd party repositories).
So if you plan to use CentOS 5.x for the next several years then you have nothing to worry about if you want to stick to Xen. I really wouldn't expect significant effort to be put into Xen in the future beyond fixing bugs and stuff. If you want a fully supported Xen go get it from Citrix.
I've been watching Xen myself since it first came out and never found it compelling so it's kind of vindication for me as I've had justify not using Xen a few times in the past couple years.
nate
Brett Serkez wrote:
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 10:45 AM, Vandaman vandaman2002-sk@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
Do people have wet underwear for nothing over XEN?
See http://www.redhat.com/promo/qumranet/
As far as CentOS is concerned saying Xen is deprecated is jumping the gun. CentOS ships with Xen and as long as upstream supports it, CentOS by extension supports it.
Thank you for the clarification.
What isn't clear from reading the above referenced material is if Xen will be included in future CentOS releases.
Which is why I originally wrote...
"*Some* are interpreting this... as an indication that xen will be dropped from RHEL6 as they direct their efforts towards KVM."
*If* xen is not included in RHEL6 then it will, by definition, be deprecated in favour of KVM irrespective of whether (or not) RH continues to support it throughout the life of RHEL5. Note that xen was dropped (not deprecated, dropped) in Fedora 10, read into that what you will :)
So xen isn't technically deprecated yet, but if I were a betting man, I wouldn't be putting all my eggs in a virtualized xen basket.
Some might choose to call that FUD, and that's their prerogative. In a way they're right as Red Hat's statement on xen does contain elements of uncertainty and doubt as they have not committed to continued ongoing support of xen past the current RHEL5 product lifecycle, and that may make some fearful for it's long term future within the Red Hat landscape.
Which is why I originally wrote...
"*Some* are interpreting this... as an indication that xen will be dropped from RHEL6 as they direct their efforts towards KVM."
*If* xen is not included in RHEL6 then it will, by definition, be deprecated in favour of KVM irrespective of whether (or not) RH continues to support it throughout the life of RHEL5. Note that xen was dropped (not deprecated, dropped) in Fedora 10, read into that what you will :)
So xen isn't technically deprecated yet, but if I were a betting man, I wouldn't be putting all my eggs in a virtualized xen basket.
Some might choose to call that FUD, and that's their prerogative. In a way they're right as Red Hat's statement on xen does contain elements of uncertainty and doubt as they have not committed to continued ongoing support of xen past the current RHEL5 product lifecycle, and that may make some fearful for it's long term future within the Red Hat landscape.
Xen wont be in RHEL6 - KVM will
libvirt handles both so fundamentally it makes no difference as to what the virtualization technology is as the way its managed will not change
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 2:13 PM, Tom Brown tom@ng23.net wrote: <snip>
Xen wont be in RHEL6 - KVM will
What insight can be offered on this change? Is this a business or technical or both decision?
libvirt handles both so fundamentally it makes no difference as to what the virtualization technology is as the way its managed will not change
I would image there has to be a conversion, for instance the format of the disk image, or the way that networking is setup?
Brett
Am 25.11.2008 um 20:22 schrieb Brett Serkez:
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 2:13 PM, Tom Brown tom@ng23.net wrote:
<snip> > > Xen wont be in RHEL6 - KVM will
What insight can be offered on this change? Is this a business or technical or both decision?
From what I have heard of people who actually know a bit about virtualization and kernel-design, it probably wasn't a hard decision on the technical side.
Business... well, Citrix owns it now, more or less. That itself probably was enough to send it to the bin. Everybody is running their favorite fork of it anyway.
libvirt handles both so fundamentally it makes no difference as to what the virtualization technology is as the way its managed will not change
I would image there has to be a conversion, for instance the format of the disk image, or the way that networking is setup?
They have some years to figure it out. ;-)
cheers, Rainer
On Tue, November 25, 2008 2:33 pm, Rainer Duffner wrote:
Am 25.11.2008 um 20:22 schrieb Brett Serkez:
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 2:13 PM, Tom Brown tom@ng23.net wrote:
<snip> > > Xen wont be in RHEL6 - KVM will
What insight can be offered on this change? Is this a business or technical or both decision?
From what I have heard of people who actually know a bit about virtualization and kernel-design, it probably wasn't a hard decision on the technical side.
Business... well, Citrix owns it now, more or less. That itself probably was enough to send it to the bin. Everybody is running their favorite fork of it anyway.
libvirt handles both so fundamentally it makes no difference as to what the virtualization technology is as the way its managed will not change
I would image there has to be a conversion, for instance the format of the disk image, or the way that networking is setup?
They have some years to figure it out. ;-)
cheers, Rainer
I was thinking about implementing Xen for our school district. Now that I'm hearing all of this I guess I need to look at something else. What does everyone recommend? Thanks Bo Lynch
Am 25.11.2008 um 20:32 schrieb Bo Lynch:
I was thinking about implementing Xen for our school district. Now that I'm hearing all of this I guess I need to look at something else. What does everyone recommend? Thanks Bo Lynch
How much money do you have? What (how many systems, what do they do?) do you actually want to virtualize? Are you going to be around your school for the next couple of years? ;-)
On a small scale, running VMware ESX3i or VMware-server is perfectly possible.
Rainer
On Tue, November 25, 2008 2:55 pm, Rainer Duffner wrote:
Am 25.11.2008 um 20:32 schrieb Bo Lynch:
I was thinking about implementing Xen for our school district. Now that I'm hearing all of this I guess I need to look at something else. What does everyone recommend? Thanks Bo Lynch
How much money do you have? What (how many systems, what do they do?) do you actually want to virtualize? Are you going to be around your school for the next couple of years? ;-)
On a small scale, running VMware ESX3i or VMware-server is perfectly possible.
Rainer
Right now we have a about 30 servers. Mixture of CentOS,debian,slack,windows. Free is always the best cost and is why we have been moving toward open source as much as possible. Bo
Right now we have a about 30 servers. Mixture of CentOS,debian,slack,windows. Free is always the best cost and is why we have been moving toward open source as much as possible.
i see nothing 'wrong' with using Xen for now and for quite a few years yet - its not going anywhere anytime soon
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 2:18 PM, Bo Lynch blynch@ameliaschools.com wrote:
On Tue, November 25, 2008 2:55 pm, Rainer Duffner wrote:
Am 25.11.2008 um 20:32 schrieb Bo Lynch:
I was thinking about implementing Xen for our school district. Now that I'm hearing all of this I guess I need to look at something else. What does everyone recommend? Thanks Bo Lynch
How much money do you have? What (how many systems, what do they do?) do you actually want to virtualize? Are you going to be around your school for the next couple of years? ;-)
On a small scale, running VMware ESX3i or VMware-server is perfectly possible.
Rainer
Right now we have a about 30 servers. Mixture of CentOS,debian,slack,windows. Free is always the best cost and is why we have been moving toward open source as much as possible. Bo
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Why not give kvm a try? i am using kvm on Fedora 9 to virtualize Win2008 at the moment. Also installed Virtual Machine Manager to set up. i am getting a BSOD on shutdown, but so far it is not bothering anything afaic tell.
Am 25.11.2008 um 21:18 schrieb Bo Lynch:
On Tue, November 25, 2008 2:55 pm, Rainer Duffner wrote:
Am 25.11.2008 um 20:32 schrieb Bo Lynch:
I was thinking about implementing Xen for our school district. Now that I'm hearing all of this I guess I need to look at something else. What does everyone recommend? Thanks Bo Lynch
How much money do you have? What (how many systems, what do they do?) do you actually want to virtualize? Are you going to be around your school for the next couple of years? ;-)
On a small scale, running VMware ESX3i or VMware-server is perfectly possible.
Rainer
Right now we have a about 30 servers. Mixture of CentOS,debian,slack,windows. Free is always the best cost and is why we have been moving toward open source as much as possible. Bo
Hm. For 30 servers, ESX3i might still be OK. Provided, you don't want/need live-migration etc. AFAIK, you can buy-in that at a later point.
What I hate about ESX(i) is the fact that you have to use Windows to manage the stuff (in the long run).
I'm not sure if KVM is upto the task, yet.
Rainer
I was thinking about implementing Xen for our school district. Now that I'm hearing all of this I guess I need to look at something else. What does everyone recommend? Thanks Bo Lynch
How much money do you have? What (how many systems, what do they do?) do you actually want to virtualize? Are you going to be around your school for the next couple of years? On a small scale, running VMware ESX3i or VMware-server is perfectly possible.
Right now we have a about 30 servers. Mixture of CentOS,debian,slack,windows. Free is always the best cost and is why we have been moving toward open source as much as possible.
Hm. For 30 servers, ESX3i might still be OK. Provided, you don't want/need live-migration etc. AFAIK, you can buy-in that at a later point.
Yes, you can. You just install Virtual Center and add the ESX hosts (provided you can enough licenses to add all your [physcial] hosts). For 30 servers I'd *guess* that would be around three physical hosts.
What I hate about ESX(i) is the fact that you have to use Windows to manage the stuff (in the long run).
True; but at the last VMworld they did announce they are going to refactor Virtual Center [which sucks, Windows or not, currently] to be cross platform.
I'm not sure if KVM is upto the task, yet.
The toolset, documentation, and support/community are really important to successful virtualization; VMware easy trumps other solutions in all those categories IMO.
I was thinking about implementing Xen for our school district. Now that I'm hearing all of this I guess I need to look at something else. What does everyone recommend? Thanks
How much money do you have? What (how many systems, what do they do?) do you actually want to virtualize? Are you going to be around your school for the next couple of years? ;-) On a small scale, running VMware ESX3i
I'd recommend the ESX3i if your server count is low (thus you won't need Virtual Center, which is not free). VMware works amazingly well, is going to be around for the forseeable future, has excellent vendor support, and a HUGE community of users. And installation/setup is akin to falling off the proverbial log.
On Nov 25, 2008, at 3:44 PM, Adam Tauno Williams awilliam@whitemice.org wrote:
I was thinking about implementing Xen for our school district. Now that I'm hearing all of this I guess I need to look at something else. What does everyone recommend? Thanks
How much money do you have? What (how many systems, what do they do?) do you actually want to virtualize? Are you going to be around your school for the next couple of years? ;-) On a small scale, running VMware ESX3i
I'd recommend the ESX3i if your server count is low (thus you won't need Virtual Center, which is not free). VMware works amazingly well, is going to be around for the forseeable future, has excellent vendor support, and a HUGE community of users. And installation/setup is akin to falling off the proverbial log.
I second that.
Plus you can buy into Virtual Center/Foundation later and have your existing ESXi hosts merged into the management framework as they are and gain VMotion, HA, DR, VDI, etc.
-Ross
Rainer Duffner wrote:
On a small scale, running VMware ESX3i or VMware-server is perfectly possible.
There seems to be a lot of fanboy affinity around ESXi - and with the fact that its 'available' off the shelf, zero cost up front. however to make it do anything you still need to buy into vmware tools. I dont see how that is a lot more of a technology lockdown than Xen or KVM.
- KB
Karanbir Singh wrote:
There seems to be a lot of fanboy affinity around ESXi - and with the fact that its 'available' off the shelf, zero cost up front. however to make it do anything you still need to buy into vmware tools. I dont see how that is a lot more of a technology lockdown than Xen or KVM.
s/is a lot/is not a lot/
- KB
On Wed, 2008-11-26 at 13:37 +0000, Karanbir Singh wrote:
Rainer Duffner wrote:
On a small scale, running VMware ESX3i or VMware-server is perfectly possible.
There seems to be a lot of fanboy affinity around ESXi -
No, the hypervisor in a virtualized environment is an absolutely critical component; there is no room at all for fanboys. VMware is a well established solution [+50% customer satisfaction, Citrix at ~30%; and +50% vs. ~20% marketshare. VMware is the only virtualization solution to have increased its market share in the last year.] With something this central do an organizations architecture it pays to be risk-averse; and migrating between solutions is a miserable experience.
and with the fact that its 'available' off the shelf, zero cost up front. however to make it do anything you still need to buy into vmware tools.
This statement is false; I have several stand-alone ESXi boxes running. There are no commercial products required for a working setup; the commercial components provide motion, consolidated backed and the centralized management console [which is crap anyway].
I dont see how that is a lot more of a technology lockdown than Xen or KVM.
Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
No, the hypervisor in a virtualized environment is an absolutely critical component; there is no room at all for fanboys. VMware is a well established solution [+50% customer satisfaction, Citrix at ~30%; and +50% vs. ~20% marketshare. VMware is the only virtualization solution to have increased its market share in the last year.] With
If I cared about any of that boo-haa-haa I'd not be using Open Source or CentOS.
something this central do an organizations architecture it pays to be risk-averse; and migrating between solutions is a miserable experience.
Depends on what you are doing and how much you know about it, I've recently helped migrate a 50 node ( real hardware ) platform from VMware to Xen, the total effort was about 2 days onsite, and downtime was 8 minutes.
and with the fact that its 'available' off the shelf, zero cost up front. however to make it do anything you still need to buy into vmware tools.
This statement is false; I have several stand-alone ESXi boxes running. There are no commercial products required for a working setup; the commercial components provide motion, consolidated backed and the centralized management console [which is crap anyway].
How do you actually connect to the ESXi instance to setup a new VM and manage existing ones ?
- KB
On Wed, 2008-11-26 at 14:33 +0000, Karanbir Singh wrote:
Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
No, the hypervisor in a virtualized environment is an absolutely critical component; there is no room at all for fanboys. VMware is a well established solution [+50% customer satisfaction, Citrix at ~30%; and +50% vs. ~20% marketshare. VMware is the only virtualization solution to have increased its market share in the last year.] With
If I cared about any of that boo-haa-haa I'd not be using Open Source or CentOS.
It doesn't make sense not to care about such things as they have real bearing on the viability of a product/project. And customer satisfaction does mean something. I do care about such things (they are not the ONLY things) and they are reasons *to use* Open Source and, particularly, CentOS.
and with the fact that its 'available' off the shelf, zero cost up front. however to make it do anything you still need to buy into vmware tools.
This statement is false; I have several stand-alone ESXi boxes running. There are no commercial products required for a working setup; the commercial components provide motion, consolidated backed and the centralized management console [which is crap anyway].
How do you actually connect to the ESXi instance to setup a new VM and manage existing ones ?
You use the VIC client, which does not require the VIC server but can connect directly to any ESX/ESXi host. After you install ESXi you navigate to the box with a web browser and there is a link to download VIC directly from the host.
Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
It doesn't make sense not to care about such things as they have real bearing on the viability of a product/project. And customer satisfaction does mean something. I do care about such things (they are not the ONLY things) and they are reasons *to use* Open Source and, particularly, CentOS.
I fail to see you logic, please elaborate on that. Why should I care what 5 other people are running when I get a better bang for my buck with a technology I use, costs less and provides me a means to contribute back into the community pool.
You use the VIC client, which does not require the VIC server but can connect directly to any ESX/ESXi host. After you install ESXi you navigate to the box with a web browser and there is a link to download VIC directly from the host.
yes, but there is technology shortcomings there, it requires me to invest in Windows as a base OS, which in turn means a lot of other legal and vendor lock in issues.
Anyway, I think the point is made, Vmware is by far the most locked in product out there, offers medium to low performance compared to other similar products, however has a lower user ability threshold to get into.
- KB
offers medium to low performance compared to other similar products
I get it, you *hate* Microsoft and Windows and ... That's cool. But before you make claims about facts (not opinion, which is very valid as I respect your personal choices to be good for you) you should verify those. Vmware is does some impressive stuff, again, that's what paying for software can ****sometimes*** grant: The gigantic dev team making good progress. This thread has suggested esx performance is medium to low, and that is just not true, for Linux or Windows guests. It's pretty freaking fast. Lots of us have the infrastructure to back that up.
Joseph L. Casale wrote:
offers medium to low performance compared to other similar products
I get it, you *hate* Microsoft and Windows and ...
Thats not true, I just dont have any use for either of them and noone I work with does either. Joseph, you are letting your imagination run away with you.
That's cool. But before you make claims about facts (not opinion, which is very valid as I respect your personal choices to be good for you) you should verify those. Vmware is does some impressive stuff, again, that's what paying for software can ****sometimes*** grant: The gigantic dev team making good progress. This thread has suggested esx performance is medium to low, and that is just not true, for Linux or Windows guests. It's pretty freaking fast. Lots of us have the infrastructure to back that up.
I'd be happy to have you over my place and we can do some real world performance testing in server roles. I'd also be happy to show you exactly how mediocre the vmware platform appears to be in some real world deployments.
vmware have been around for a long time, and they do have a usable product and it does do loads in different incantations. But one thing its not good at is SME virtualisation. An area they know well, and something they are quite concerned about.
btw, as might not be clear to some people, I dont do Windows hosts/guests so dont know what the issues there might be. My experience is purely based on Linux centric stuff.
I'd be happy to have you over my place and we can do some real world performance testing in server roles
I would actually love that (just for the sake of learning) but me thinks were on opposite sides of the pond:)
btw, as might not be clear to some people, I dont do Windows hosts/guests so dont know what the issues there might be. My experience is purely based on Linux centric stuff.
Well, I have had very good luck with both. The commercial Xen product from my tests and real world deployments ran Windows slower than esx. Open source version of Xen doesn't have stable hv drivers for windows so it's not even worth talking about.
I found Linux to run well on both and never found any issues with CentOS on esx.
Once KVM settles down, I will gladly have a learn at it but until then I keep playing with Xen but run esx in production as I need Windows guests as well.
Am 26.11.2008 um 18:55 schrieb Karanbir Singh:
Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
It doesn't make sense not to care about such things as they have real bearing on the viability of a product/project. And customer satisfaction does mean something. I do care about such things (they are not the ONLY things) and they are reasons *to use* Open Source and, particularly, CentOS.
I fail to see you logic, please elaborate on that. Why should I care what 5 other people are running when I get a better bang for my buck with a technology I use, costs less and provides me a means to contribute back into the community pool.
You use the VIC client, which does not require the VIC server but can connect directly to any ESX/ESXi host. After you install ESXi you navigate to the box with a web browser and there is a link to download VIC directly from the host.
yes, but there is technology shortcomings there, it requires me to invest in Windows as a base OS, which in turn means a lot of other legal and vendor lock in issues.
Agreed - I hate the fact the the VIC only runs on Windows. There is AFAIK, an experimental GUI from a 3rd-party using Adobe AIR - but even without trying it (AIR doesn't run on my 64bit desktop anyway...) I hesitate to call this a "solution".... ;-) VMware is very Windows-centric. They do know that they have a customer- base that in part absolutely hates this - but from what I read on the forums, it's not an immediate concern to them. And above all, the stupid VIC is slow as a snail.
Rainer
Karanbir Singh wrote:
Anyway, I think the point is made, Vmware is by far the most locked in product out there, offers medium to low performance compared to other similar products, however has a lower user ability threshold to get into.
Do you mean some specific version of VMware or what as being locked in? I move images around among Linux/Windows/Mac hosts with the free server on Linux/Windows and Fusion on the Mac.
Les,
Les Mikesell wrote:
Do you mean some specific version of VMware or what as being locked in? I move images around among Linux/Windows/Mac hosts with the free server on Linux/Windows and Fusion on the Mac.
you might want to step back a bit and workout exactly what constitutes a vmware environment. The bit about vmware being more than just an image seems to be missing at the moment :D
Also, the conversation was specific about their hypervisor based products ESXi being the main one in question here.
- KB
Karanbir Singh wrote:
Les,
Les Mikesell wrote:
Do you mean some specific version of VMware or what as being locked in? I move images around among Linux/Windows/Mac hosts with the free server on Linux/Windows and Fusion on the Mac.
you might want to step back a bit and workout exactly what constitutes a vmware environment. The bit about vmware being more than just an image seems to be missing at the moment :D
I'm not sure what you mean. The way I use it, there is the 'virtual machine' and the image. The image is transportable to any of the virtual machine hosts and with only the usual amount of pain to move a working system to different hardware, to a physical host. That's the least amount of lock-in I can imagine. I do wish Centos had better hardware-migration tools, though.
Also, the conversation was specific about their hypervisor based products ESXi being the main one in question here.
OK, but you just said VMware... I don't use any of the magic stuff that a physical machine can't do. And using the server product I can run disk intensive things like databases and NFS home directories on the physical host, something that seems to not be recommended under Xen. Virtualbox looks like a reasonable option these days too but I haven't had a chance to try it out.
Karanbir Singh wrote:
Rainer Duffner wrote:
On a small scale, running VMware ESX3i or VMware-server is perfectly possible.
There seems to be a lot of fanboy affinity around ESXi - and with the fact that its 'available' off the shelf, zero cost up front. however to make it do anything you still need to buy into vmware tools. I dont see how that is a lot more of a technology lockdown than Xen or KVM.
You don't really need to buy anything, you do if you want fancy enterprise-like management of multiple systems from one screen. And there are limitations in ESXi, it certainly isn't equivalent in abilities to enterprise or standard edition.
But as far as using it to virtualize systems it works ok, and you can use Virtual Infrastructure client, the same client you use for their non free versions of ESX(assuming no VirtualCenter of course). VI Client is free.
A big downside to ESXi is it does not support serial consoles(yet), and we've had some painful experiences trying to get 802.3ad+802.1q working, while it was painless doing the same in ESX Foundation, not sure what the issue was.
I've also read in their features list that ESXi does not support cold migrations, nor snapshots, I haven't tested either of these situations yet myself. These are two key things that I find critical. If your not on shared storage than cold (or hot) migrations isn't an issue.
nate
nate wrote:
You don't really need to buy anything, you do if you want fancy enterprise-like management of multiple systems from one screen. And there are limitations in ESXi, it certainly isn't equivalent in abilities to enterprise or standard edition.
I've been repeatedly told ( including by people @vmware ) that you need the VI-client in order to get a management interface on ESXi, which neither runs on Linux nor is freely available.
Am I being lied to ?
- KB
Karanbir Singh wrote:
nate wrote:
You don't really need to buy anything, you do if you want fancy enterprise-like management of multiple systems from one screen. And there are limitations in ESXi, it certainly isn't equivalent in abilities to enterprise or standard edition.
I've been repeatedly told ( including by people @vmware ) that you need the VI-client in order to get a management interface on ESXi, which neither runs on Linux nor is freely available.
It does not run directly on linux today that is true but it is free(included with ESXi). Of course free here means cost, not open source etc.
nate
On Wed, 2008-11-26 at 15:16 +0000, Karanbir Singh wrote:
nate wrote:
You don't really need to buy anything, you do if you want fancy enterprise-like management of multiple systems from one screen. And there are limitations in ESXi, it certainly isn't equivalent in abilities to enterprise or standard edition.
I've been repeatedly told ( including by people @vmware ) that you need the VI-client in order to get a management interface on ESXi, which neither runs on Linux nor is freely available.
It does not run on LINUX, but it is free. And comes with every single ESXi install. Once you install ESXi the VI-client is downloadable directly from that host; just point your browser at the VMware host.
Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
It does not run on LINUX, but it is free. And comes with every single ESXi install. Once you install ESXi the VI-client is downloadable directly from that host; just point your browser at the VMware host.
yes, but Linux is my chosen base to work on, which means vmware is incapable of delivering a platform that I might be able to use.
- KB
Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
It does not run on LINUX, but it is free. And comes with every single ESXi install. Once you install ESXi the VI-client is downloadable directly from that host; just point your browser at the VMware host.
Well, but why do you assume people run Windows where you run your browser? You need a Windows license to run VIC, so the price of installing ESXi/VIC is around $100 and up.
Morten Torstensen wrote:
Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
It does not run on LINUX, but it is free. And comes with every single ESXi install. Once you install ESXi the VI-client is downloadable directly from that host; just point your browser at the VMware host.
Well, but why do you assume people run Windows where you run your browser? You need a Windows license to run VIC, so the price of installing ESXi/VIC is around $100 and up.
To someone who doesn't already have a windows license?
Les Mikesell wrote:
Well, but why do you assume people run Windows where you run your browser? You need a Windows license to run VIC, so the price of installing ESXi/VIC is around $100 and up.
To someone who doesn't already have a windows license?
I wouldn't have a spare one, and even if you do have one you still paid for it at some point.
Now, if only IBM could implement the Power hardware Hypervisor to the Intel/AMD world...
I've been repeatedly told ( including by people @vmware ) that you need the VI-client in order to get a management interface on ESXi, which neither runs on Linux nor is freely available.
Am I being lied to ?
yes, VI is free. It does not run on Linux though which sucks, but same for XenServer's commercial product...
Joseph L. Casale wrote:
yes, VI is free. It does not run on Linux though which sucks, but same for XenServer's commercial product...
your definition of Free is kinda warped if by your free you mean, having to buy windows, agreeing to the draconian MS licenses and adding all that layer on top in order to get to the product.
Also, I dont need a commercial product to look at provisioning or managing anything on Xen.
- KB
There seems to be a lot of fanboy affinity around ESXi - and with the fact that its 'available' off the shelf, zero cost up front. however to make it do anything you still need to buy into vmware tools.
Huh, Tools are free? I do _a lot_ of nothing apparently without what I assume you meant, Virtual Center.
ESXi, like all vmware products, is highly polished and very reliable. I am a HUGE fan of Xen, spent a lot of time learning it and I love it. But don't discount ESXi since it's not open source.
Joseph L. Casale wrote:
ESXi, like all vmware products, is highly polished and very reliable. I am a HUGE fan of Xen, spent a lot of time learning it and I love it. But don't discount ESXi since it's not open source.
I discount it as a product I cant use. And as a product that does not give me the best value overall.
- KB
Joseph L. Casale wrote:
ESXi, like all vmware products, is highly polished and very reliable. I am a HUGE fan of Xen, spent a lot of time learning it and I love it. But don't discount ESXi since it's not open source.
So very much off topic but I can't resist :)
I like vmware a lot because they have made good products and have been a very long time supporter of linux. I have been using vmware since before 1.0 back in 1999 or maybe late 1998 on linux. In 2003-2005 I used a bunch of VMWare GSX(again on linux), worked well, never let me down. In 2007 I started using ESX 3, so far only used the foundation version not the enterprise, but it's dirt cheap, $999 per 2 sockets, the same exact software was $3750 per 2 sockets a little over a year ago.
It's among the most solid pieces of software I've ever used myself.
nate
On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 1:01 PM, nate centos@linuxpowered.net wrote:
Joseph L. Casale wrote:
ESXi, like all vmware products, is highly polished and very reliable. I am a HUGE fan of Xen, spent a lot of time learning it and I love it. But don't discount ESXi since it's not open source.
So very much off topic but I can't resist :)
I like vmware a lot because they have made good products and have been a very long time supporter of linux. I have been using vmware since before 1.0 back in 1999 or maybe late 1998 on linux. In 2003-2005 I used a bunch of VMWare GSX(again on linux), worked well, never let me down. In 2007 I started using ESX 3, so far only used the foundation version not the enterprise, but it's dirt cheap, $999 per 2 sockets, the same exact software was $3750 per 2 sockets a little over a year ago.
It's among the most solid pieces of software I've ever used myself.
Well put, I also think that too.
I think the failure of Xen was it's failure to get included in the Linux kernel early on. Now it's too late, there is such a wide gap between their 2.6.18 kernel and the current 2.6.27 kernel and the work to catch up their hypervisor/kernel to current is going to make the work of polishing their existing code suffer, not to mention that the distributions out there are readying new releases on more current kernels that won't have the Xen api built in and will need to either drop or patch/maintain them which is too much work/effort = $$$.
Not getting Xen into the kernel earlier is going to be Xen's downfall.
-Ross
On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 02:20:31PM -0500, Ross Walker wrote:
On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 1:01 PM, nate centos@linuxpowered.net wrote:
Joseph L. Casale wrote:
ESXi, like all vmware products, is highly polished and very reliable. I am a HUGE fan of Xen, spent a lot of time learning it and I love it. But don't discount ESXi since it's not open source.
So very much off topic but I can't resist :)
I like vmware a lot because they have made good products and have been a very long time supporter of linux. I have been using vmware since before 1.0 back in 1999 or maybe late 1998 on linux. In 2003-2005 I used a bunch of VMWare GSX(again on linux), worked well, never let me down. In 2007 I started using ESX 3, so far only used the foundation version not the enterprise, but it's dirt cheap, $999 per 2 sockets, the same exact software was $3750 per 2 sockets a little over a year ago.
It's among the most solid pieces of software I've ever used myself.
Well put, I also think that too.
I think the failure of Xen was it's failure to get included in the Linux kernel early on. Now it's too late, there is such a wide gap between their 2.6.18 kernel and the current 2.6.27 kernel and the work to catch up their hypervisor/kernel to current is going to make the work of polishing their existing code suffer, not to mention that the distributions out there are readying new releases on more current kernels that won't have the Xen api built in and will need to either drop or patch/maintain them which is too much work/effort = $$$.
Not getting Xen into the kernel earlier is going to be Xen's downfall.
Yes, it was a failure to not actively work on pv_ops based dom0 already earlier.
At the moment Xensource is working on that, and the plan atm is to get pv_ops based dom0 patches ready for Linux 2.6.29.
http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenParavirtOps
Latest pv_ops dom0 patches: http://xenbits.xen.org/paravirt_ops/patches.hg/
These patches have already been sent to lkml for review and comments..
Then again it will take a while to catch up with all the feature currently present in the Xenlinux 2.6.18 tree..
-- Pasi
Not getting Xen into the kernel earlier is going to be Xen's downfall.
XEN will never make into the kernel. Period. I never paid any attention to Xen but I had to lately for get Windows virtualized for new Centos desktops here at the school. What is the first thing that Centos 5 loaded?
The XEN kernel. Then the Linux guest in dom-0.
I was dismayed. Why was Linux running on top of XEN?
Now, I know why. I found this:
http://blog.codemonkey.ws/2008/05/truth-about-kvm-and-xen.html
XEN is not a Linux solution. For this reason, I am glad that Redhat bought KVM and will further develop this proper Linux solution to virtualization on Linux rather than depending on a third-party for virtualization. Good riddance XEN.
No more worries about getting XEN compatible drivers for accelerated desktops while running a Windows HVM guest.
So I will be kissing Centos 5 bye bye for the school desktops and switching to Ubuntu Hardy. When RHEL6 and therefore Centos 6 comes out, hopefully I can come back to Centos...
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 4:57 PM, Christopher Chan christopher.chan@bradbury.edu.hk wrote:
Not getting Xen into the kernel earlier is going to be Xen's downfall.
XEN will never make into the kernel. Period. I never paid any attention to Xen but I had to lately for get Windows virtualized for new Centos desktops here at the school. What is the first thing that Centos 5 loaded?
The XEN kernel. Then the Linux guest in dom-0.
I was dismayed. Why was Linux running on top of XEN?
Now, I know why. I found this:
http://blog.codemonkey.ws/2008/05/truth-about-kvm-and-xen.html
XEN is not a Linux solution. For this reason, I am glad that Redhat bought KVM and will further develop this proper Linux solution to virtualization on Linux rather than depending on a third-party for virtualization. Good riddance XEN.
No more worries about getting XEN compatible drivers for accelerated desktops while running a Windows HVM guest.
So I will be kissing Centos 5 bye bye for the school desktops and switching to Ubuntu Hardy. When RHEL6 and therefore Centos 6 comes out, hopefully I can come back to Centos...
There are other virtualization solutions that run with/on CentOS....
mhr
So I will be kissing Centos 5 bye bye for the school desktops and switching to Ubuntu Hardy. When RHEL6 and therefore Centos 6 comes out, hopefully I can come back to Centos...
There are other virtualization solutions that run with/on CentOS....
I did leave one other detail out...Edubuntu. I will post a separate email for that.
On Tue, Dec 02, 2008 at 08:57:26AM +0800, Christopher Chan wrote:
Not getting Xen into the kernel earlier is going to be Xen's downfall.
XEN will never make into the kernel. Period.
We were talking about getting Xen dom0 support into Linux kernel.
There is already Xen domU support in Linux kernel.
-- Pasi
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 12:22 PM, Brett Serkez bserkez@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 2:13 PM, Tom Brown tom@ng23.net wrote:
<snip> > > Xen wont be in RHEL6 - KVM will
What insight can be offered on this change? Is this a business or technical or both decision?
The main issue seems to be cost of porting fixes and Xen itself to newer kernels. The fact that Xen did not get into mainstream kernel made the costs higher and higher. KVM got into mainstream kernel and thus has more eyes on it.
Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
The main issue seems to be cost of porting fixes and Xen itself to newer kernels. The fact that Xen did not get into mainstream kernel made the costs higher and higher. KVM got into mainstream kernel and thus has more eyes on it.
Another point... KVM only runs on new CPUs that have hardware virtualization, this makes its job, and therefore implementation, simpler. Xen runs on older processors but requires special drivers ("paravirtualization") for most guest environments, and is more complex because of this.
Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 12:22 PM, Brett Serkez bserkez@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 2:13 PM, Tom Brown tom@ng23.net wrote:
<snip> > Xen wont be in RHEL6 - KVM will What insight can be offered on this change? Is this a business or technical or both decision?
The main issue seems to be cost of porting fixes and Xen itself to newer kernels. The fact that Xen did not get into mainstream kernel made the costs higher and higher. KVM got into mainstream kernel and thus has more eyes on it.
XEN will never make it into the mainstream kernel.
http://blog.codemonkey.ws/2008/05/truth-about-kvm-and-xen.html
On Tue, Dec 02, 2008 at 09:00:39AM +0800, Christopher Chan wrote:
Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 12:22 PM, Brett Serkez bserkez@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 2:13 PM, Tom Brown tom@ng23.net wrote:
<snip> > Xen wont be in RHEL6 - KVM will What insight can be offered on this change? Is this a business or technical or both decision?
The main issue seems to be cost of porting fixes and Xen itself to newer kernels. The fact that Xen did not get into mainstream kernel made the costs higher and higher. KVM got into mainstream kernel and thus has more eyes on it.
XEN will never make it into the mainstream kernel.
Xen _hypervisor_ will not make it into the kernel, because there's no point in that. It's not part of Xen design.
Linux support for Xen hypervisor is already in Linux kernel.
-- Pasi
Xen _hypervisor_ will not make it into the kernel, because there's no point in that. It's not part of Xen design.
Linux support for Xen hypervisor is already in Linux kernel.
Whatever. From the last few months of testing with Xen, I really could care less about running anything on it.
I like the comfy feeling I get when I see that I have one less place to hit for troubleshooting/compromising with the kvm solution.
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 9:00 AM, Chan Chung Hang Christopher christopher.chan@bradbury.edu.hk wrote:
Xen _hypervisor_ will not make it into the kernel, because there's no point in that. It's not part of Xen design.
Linux support for Xen hypervisor is already in Linux kernel.
Whatever. From the last few months of testing with Xen, I really could care less about running anything on it.
I like the comfy feeling I get when I see that I have one less place to hit for troubleshooting/compromising with the kvm solution.
It's most obvious you have no idea what you are talking about, so if you prefer Ubuntu over CentOS then please move along, we need no trolls here.
-Ross
Ross Walker wrote:
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 9:00 AM, Chan Chung Hang Christopher christopher.chan@bradbury.edu.hk wrote:
Xen _hypervisor_ will not make it into the kernel, because there's no point in that. It's not part of Xen design.
Linux support for Xen hypervisor is already in Linux kernel.
Whatever. From the last few months of testing with Xen, I really could care less about running anything on it.
I like the comfy feeling I get when I see that I have one less place to hit for troubleshooting/compromising with the kvm solution.
It's most obvious you have no idea what you are talking about, so if you prefer Ubuntu over CentOS then please move along, we need no trolls here.
Troll? I have been on this list for over four years. I have posted under Feizhou and one or two other addresses as I moved jobs.
So I only messed with XEN in the last few months. FYI, I am using it for DESKTOPS. Not servers. This is not a matter of preferring Ubuntu. It is one of NO CHOICE. I know next to nothing about Debian/Ubuntu configuration files nor am I familiar with dpkg or apt as I am with rpm and yum. You think I want to move over for fun?
Let us see you try getting accelerated 3D/video support for X and Xen working together and then add a multi-seat configuration on top of that.
Sorry you don't like my complaining that I cannot do this or that on RHEL5 for desktop purposes but I have a school to support here, not a cluster of mail/web/storage/file servers. Troll he calls me.
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 4:41 PM, Christopher Chan christopher.chan@bradbury.edu.hk wrote:
Troll? I have been on this list for over four years. I have posted under Feizhou and one or two other addresses as I moved jobs.
I shan't dispute you on this, but I would like to point out that:
1) There are 67 hits on a search for "Christopher Chan" in the archives over the last 2 years. 2) I didn't see any of them linked to the feizhou address (which I recognize from w while ago), but I also didn't read every single hit.... 3) There are about 930 hits on Feizhou, but I think those all end in September 2007 or so.
Even so, _I_ didn't know you were Feizhou until just now, and I read every post to this list (but I don't remember them all). Did you really expect us all to remember that you changed email addresses?
In any case, don't take it too seriously. I've been called a troll, too, (though not here, yet, I don't think), and I couldn't care less. I still post when I think it's appropriate.
Smile - it's easier than frowning and typing long hasty replies to messages that offend you.
mhr
MHR wrote:
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 4:41 PM, Christopher Chan christopher.chan@bradbury.edu.hk wrote:
Troll? I have been on this list for over four years. I have posted under Feizhou and one or two other addresses as I moved jobs.
I shan't dispute you on this, but I would like to point out that:
- There are 67 hits on a search for "Christopher Chan" in the
archives over the last 2 years. 2) I didn't see any of them linked to the feizhou address (which I recognize from w while ago), but I also didn't read every single hit....
I did have one post where I said I was formerly using feizhou I think...under christopher at ias dot com dot hk. But yeah, who cares.
- There are about 930 hits on Feizhou, but I think those all end in
September 2007 or so.
Yeah, I stopped using Feizhou a year or so after I left Outblaze. Feizhou at graffiti dot net ain't subscribed anymore.
Even so, _I_ didn't know you were Feizhou until just now, and I read every post to this list (but I don't remember them all). Did you really expect us all to remember that you changed email addresses?
No, not really.
In any case, don't take it too seriously. I've been called a troll, too, (though not here, yet, I don't think), and I couldn't care less. I still post when I think it's appropriate.
Smile - it's easier than frowning and typing long hasty replies to messages that offend you.
The word of wisdom here. :-)
On 2008-12-03, 00:41 GMT, Christopher Chan wrote:
This is not a matter of preferring Ubuntu. It is one of NO CHOICE. I know next to nothing about Debian/Ubuntu configuration files nor am I familiar with dpkg or apt as I am with rpm and yum. You think I want to move over for fun?
I am certainly missing something here -- you are familiar with the Red Hat world and thus when you need desktops you choose Ubuntu? Have you heard about Fedora? Fedora 10 was released just now, and I think (given Qumranet is now part of Red Hat) it should have pretty good support for kvm.
What do I miss?
Best,
Matěj
Matej Cepl wrote:
On 2008-12-03, 00:41 GMT, Christopher Chan wrote:
This is not a matter of preferring Ubuntu. It is one of NO CHOICE. I know next to nothing about Debian/Ubuntu configuration files nor am I familiar with dpkg or apt as I am with rpm and yum. You think I want to move over for fun?
I am certainly missing something here -- you are familiar with the Red Hat world and thus when you need desktops you choose Ubuntu? Have you heard about Fedora? Fedora 10 was released just now, and I think (given Qumranet is now part of Red Hat) it should have pretty good support for kvm.
What do I miss?
Maybe the fact that I and many here use Centos because we do not want to have to upgrade every six months?
Hardy is LTS. I won't be rolling out Intrepid.
I am not uber mad about keeping to what is familiar if all I have to do is man dpkg/apt-get a few more times or familiarize myself with a weirdo network configuration file. What would you pick? Learn a few new commands/configuration files or have to prep up a new desktop rollout every six months?
I have already gone with OpenSolaris Indiana for file servers using samba, zfs + zfs|nfs4 acls/snapshots and the initial pain of getting used to a new environment is more or less over and this was about six months ago. But then, this is only because Indiana upgrades are pretty painless and I do not need anything special besides what is provided in the stock repo.
I believe in using the right tool for the job. So I might pick OpenBSD for a firewall over Linux depending on what needs to be on firewall/nat gateway.
RHEL/Fedora is not the ultimate answer for everything although we'd like it to be...but I guess complaining here won't do any good. :-P
On 2008-12-04, 00:42 GMT, Christopher Chan wrote:
What would you pick? Learn a few new commands/configuration files or have to prep up a new desktop rollout every six months?
12 -- Fedora 8 is still pretty good and only now you would have to switch to F10. Actually, I know about many people who skipped F9 completely, and I don't blame them.
I believe in using the right tool for the job. So I might pick OpenBSD for a firewall over Linux depending on what needs to be on firewall/nat gateway.
Cool. Of course, you would have to have to familiarize with the new environment, but I guess you know that.
RHEL/Fedora is not the ultimate answer for everything although we'd like it to be
I would have a question about Ubuntu LTS. What are your experience with it? How much they really maintain it or is it (as I suspect; note, I have on experience with it, so I am not claiming anything) just that they throw LTS label on one of their releases and fix security issues only?
Best,
Matěj
cz>
Matej Cepl wrote on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:48:17 +0100:
I would have a question about Ubuntu LTS. What are your experience with it?
Folks, can you please move this discussion off-list? Thanks.
Kai
On Thu, 4 Dec 2008, Matej Cepl wrote:
On 2008-12-04, 00:42 GMT, Christopher Chan wrote:
What would you pick? Learn a few new commands/configuration files or have to prep up a new desktop rollout every six months?
12 -- Fedora 8 is still pretty good and only now you would have to switch to F10. Actually, I know about many people who skipped F9 completely, and I don't blame them.
hi, Matej
Almost all (I cannot think of any exceptions, but there may be) of the core centos team do not run off-topic threads on either the fedora or RHEL lists; May we have the same courtesy?
-- Russ herrold herrold at centos dot org
On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 9:50 AM, R P Herrold herrold@centos.org wrote:
Almost all (I cannot think of any exceptions, but there may be) of the core centos team do not run off-topic threads on either the fedora or RHEL lists; May we have the same courtesy?
I just want to add a kudos and thanks to the centos team - I don't know how you guys do all of what you do, but I am sincerely grateful. (I have trouble enough keeping up with my usual stream of email and only about three or four lists, including centos.)
Keep up the good^h^h^h^hGREAT work!
Mark Hull-Richter CentOS/Linux/C Software Developer Registered Linux User #472807 - sign up at http://counter.li.org/
On 2008-12-04, 17:50 GMT, R P Herrold wrote:
Almost all (I cannot think of any exceptions, but there may be) of the core centos team do not run off-topic threads on either the fedora or RHEL lists; May we have the same courtesy?
sorry, I will do better next time,
Ross Walker rswwalker@gmail.com wrote:
It's most obvious you have no idea what you are talking about, so if you prefer Ubuntu over CentOS then please move along, we need no trolls here.
Agreed. The guy seems to be a poorly informed loudmouth.
Regards, Vandaman.
Tom Brown wrote on Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:13:26 +0000:
libvirt handles both so fundamentally it makes no difference as to what the virtualization technology is as the way its managed will not change
It makes a difference. All of what I hear about KVM clearly states that its performance is much worse than a paravirtualized RHEL/CentOS.
Kai
It makes a difference. All of what I hear about KVM clearly states that its performance is much worse than a paravirtualized RHEL/CentOS.
i never mentioned anything about performance - pvirt works very well for me right now on a large scale so with 'support' being around for over 6 years i see no reason to try anything else at the moment.
Tom Brown wrote on Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:42:30 +0000:
i never mentioned anything about performance
Exactly, that's why I did it. You wrote it doesn't make a difference, it does.
Kai
Ned Slider wrote:
*If* xen is not included in RHEL6 then it will, by definition, be deprecated in favour of KVM irrespective of whether (or not) RH continues to support it throughout the life of RHEL5. Note that xen was dropped (not deprecated, dropped) in Fedora 10, read into that what you will :)
Ned, this is not true. Fedora10 does have DomU support for Xen, dom0 support wasent ready in time, the timeline does indicate that Fedora11 will bring dom0 support back pending xen on paravirt_ops running production grade. But then once that happens, it does not really matter, since I'd expect most of Xen to get upstreamed into the mainline kernel - making distro support kind of academic.
Also, fedora10 contains all of xend and libvirt support, so if anyone wants to bring in a kernel specially built for it, all the userland and setup is already in place.
Xen isnt going anywhere - Redhat and others have put in major efforts into making it work and as far as I can see, while kvm might be a far superior platform, its only an 'alternative' platform. Not the replacement one.
- KB
Karanbir Singh wrote on Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:49:20 +0000:
Fedora10 does have DomU support for Xen, dom0 support wasent ready in time,
what exactly does that mean? That you can run Fedora as a pv guest in other distros, but not under Fedora itself?
Kai
Kai Schaetzl wrote:
Karanbir Singh wrote on Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:49:20 +0000:
Fedora10 does have DomU support for Xen, dom0 support wasent ready in time,
what exactly does that mean? That you can run Fedora as a pv guest in other distros, but not under Fedora itself?
Fedora10, yes, not yet. Lets see how the updates pan out.
On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 12:49:16PM +0100, Kai Schaetzl wrote:
Karanbir Singh wrote on Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:49:20 +0000:
Fedora10 does have DomU support for Xen, dom0 support wasent ready in time,
what exactly does that mean? That you can run Fedora as a pv guest in other distros, but not under Fedora itself?
Yes, you can run Fedora 10 as a guest/domU on other distros.
You can also run Fedora 10 as a domU on Fedora 8 dom0.
(At the moment Fedora 8 is the latest release that includes Xen dom0 support).
You can also run Fedora 10 as a domU on upcoming RHEL 5.3 and CentOS 5.3, or if you're willing to upgrade libxc and python-virtinst packages, you can already now run F10 on RHEL 5.2 / CentOS 5.2.
Or you can use RHEL 5.3 beta as dom0.
There are many options.
-- Pasi
Pasi Kärkkäinen wrote on Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:04:16 +0200:
There are many options.
Yeah. The point behind my asking was if one would be able to run RHEL/CentOS 6 as a dom0 - as it is derived from Fedora and reflects the available bits at the time of the OS freeze. In other words, if there is a normal upgrade path concerning Xen from RHEL/CentOS 5 to 6 or not. So, at the moment it looks like you can't run RHEL 6 as a dom0, but this may change until it's release depending on the upstream (kernel.org?) kernel having the relevant xen bits in time for an RHEL release (which is promised for 2.6.29 or so at the moment). You can probably run RHEL 6 paravirtualized on a RHEL 5 dom0. Correct interpretation so far?
Kai
On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 03:31:19PM +0100, Kai Schaetzl wrote:
Pasi Kärkkäinen wrote on Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:04:16 +0200:
There are many options.
Yeah. The point behind my asking was if one would be able to run RHEL/CentOS 6 as a dom0 - as it is derived from Fedora and reflects the available bits at the time of the OS freeze. In other words, if there is a normal upgrade path concerning Xen from RHEL/CentOS 5 to 6 or not. So, at the moment it looks like you can't run RHEL 6 as a dom0, but this may change until it's release depending on the upstream (kernel.org?) kernel having the relevant xen bits in time for an RHEL release (which is promised for 2.6.29 or so at the moment). You can probably run RHEL 6 paravirtualized on a RHEL 5 dom0. Correct interpretation so far?
Yeah, more or less correct :)
Then again Redhat guys have not yet commented about planned features for RHEL6..
-- Pasi
Pasi Kärkkäinen wrote on Mon, 1 Dec 2008 09:51:45 +0200:
Then again Redhat guys have not yet commented about planned features for RHEL6..
Of course, it's the current state of affairs as we think we know it.
Kai
Pasi Kärkkäinen wrote:
Then again Redhat guys have not yet commented about planned features for RHEL6..
Quite a few people appear to be quite insecure on the basis of what they think is/is not going to happen. The bottom line is crystal-ball gazing should be left alone and people should work with what's available in CentOS.
Regards, Vandaman.
Karanbir Singh wrote:
Xen isnt going anywhere - Redhat and others have put in major efforts into making it work and as far as I can see, while kvm might be a far superior platform, its only an 'alternative' platform. Not the replacement one.
http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid94...
With only 20,000 lines of code, KVM is simpler to develop and maintain than the 300,000-line Xen, he added.
"The best judge of the better hypervisor is the Linux community," Schnaider said. "And the momentum is shifting from Xen to KVM," with Red Hat and Ubuntu both announcing adoption of KVM, he said. [..] Cathrow cautioned, however, that although Red Hat will continue to develop new features for both platforms, it "might not make sense" to incorporate all the latest enhancements in Xen, he said.
"Xen's been a great solution, but KVM offers more innovation and faster features," Cathrow said. "Technology moves forward, and KVM is the future."
--
nate
nate wrote:
Cathrow cautioned, however, that although Red Hat will continue to develop new features for both platforms, it "might not make sense" to incorporate all the latest enhancements in Xen, he said.
... Redhat are not the only people working on Xen and the Linux kernel...
"Xen's been a great solution, but KVM offers more innovation and faster features," Cathrow said. "Technology moves forward, and KVM is the future."
I agree. However KVM isnt here yet, does not work that well and does not have anywhere near the momentum / userbase that Xen has today. So while I totally agree KVM is quite cool, I am not giving up on my Xen installs quite yet. Besides, who knows what the future holds :D there might even be something to top KVM, like a hypervisor in the bios of the machine... hey, isnt that where this started from in the first place!
And keep in mind that you cant even install KVM in a stable supported setup today. A situation that is looking quite unlikely to change for a while yet.
- KB
Ned Slider wrote:
Which is why I originally wrote...
"*Some* are interpreting this... as an indication that xen will be dropped from RHEL6 as they direct their efforts towards KVM."
*If* xen is not included in RHEL6 then it will, by definition, be deprecated in favour of KVM irrespective of whether (or not) RH continues to support it throughout the life of RHEL5. Note that xen was dropped (not deprecated, dropped) in Fedora 10, read into that what you will :)
So xen isn't technically deprecated yet, but if I were a betting man, I wouldn't be putting all my eggs in a virtualized xen basket.
Some might choose to call that FUD, and that's their prerogative. In a way they're right as Red Hat's statement on xen does contain elements of uncertainty and doubt as they have not committed to continued ongoing support of xen past the current RHEL5 product lifecycle, and that may make some fearful for it's long term future within the Red Hat landscape.
You seem to be putting words in Fedora's mouth and this is the problem with rumour-mongering. Show us a link where it says Xen was dropped by Fedora. Fedora works with upstream and Xen (Dom0 support) was not ready in time for Fedora 10, but that does not mean it cannot come by way of an update or Fedora 11 which is expected to be the base of RHEL 6.
You are welcome to join any of the discussions upstream, rather than spreading FUD or being misinformed.
See http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/XenPvopsDom0
Regards, Vandaman.
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 06:43:14PM +0000, Ned Slider wrote:
Brett Serkez wrote:
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 10:45 AM, Vandaman vandaman2002-sk@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
Do people have wet underwear for nothing over XEN?
See http://www.redhat.com/promo/qumranet/
As far as CentOS is concerned saying Xen is deprecated is jumping the gun. CentOS ships with Xen and as long as upstream supports it, CentOS by extension supports it.
Thank you for the clarification.
What isn't clear from reading the above referenced material is if Xen will be included in future CentOS releases.
Which is why I originally wrote...
"*Some* are interpreting this... as an indication that xen will be dropped from RHEL6 as they direct their efforts towards KVM."
*If* xen is not included in RHEL6 then it will, by definition, be deprecated in favour of KVM irrespective of whether (or not) RH continues to support it throughout the life of RHEL5. Note that xen was dropped (not deprecated, dropped) in Fedora 10, read into that what you will :)
Xen is NOT dropped in Fedora 10. Fedora 10 contains xen-hypervisor, xen-tools/libs and domU kernel.. and of course all the usual virt-tools.
Fedora 10 does not include dom0 capable xen kernel. Fedora 9 didn't include that either. Fedora 8 is the latest Fedora release (at the moment) to include Xen dom0 support.
Fedora 9 and Fedora 10 both contain Xen domU capable kernels, and they can be used as Xen guests/domUs.
The reason why F9/F10 do not include Xen dom0 kernel is the fact that dom0 support is not yet included in mainline/vanilla Linux kernels. Fedora didn't want to forward-port separate non-mainline patches for dom0 support.
This is currently being worked on, and pv_ops dom0 support is currently planned for inclusion in Linux 2.6.29.
See: http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenParavirtOps And: http://xenbits.xen.org/paravirt_ops/patches.hg/ (for latest pv_ops dom0 patches)
Fedora will re-add Xen dom0 support into the kernel when it's included upstream.
So xen isn't technically deprecated yet, but if I were a betting man, I wouldn't be putting all my eggs in a virtualized xen basket.
Some might choose to call that FUD, and that's their prerogative. In a way they're right as Red Hat's statement on xen does contain elements of uncertainty and doubt as they have not committed to continued ongoing support of xen past the current RHEL5 product lifecycle, and that may make some fearful for it's long term future within the Red Hat landscape.
It's interesting to see what will happen.. At the moment Xensource is actively working on getting pv_ops based dom0 support into vanilla Linux kernels.
The lack of dom0 support in the standard upstream kernel is the only reason why Fedora 9/10 do not ship with Xen dom0 support.. afaik.
(Efforts needed to continuously forward-port Xenlinux dom0 patches from 2.6.18 to current 2.6.2x kernels was too big pain to handle.)
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