Hi,
We are thinking of using CentOS with XEN in production, but we are facing some issues regarding the 3.0.3 version of the xen hypervisor and windows paravirtualization. The drivers we are using are from here ( http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenWindowsGplPv). The solution we found is upgrading to xen 3.4.2, using a strange repository (gitco.de), and everything seems to work. Now the question is: would you recomand using the 3.0.3 kernel provided by CentOS in production and searching for other paravirtualization drivers, or go with 3.4.2? Is this version of the hypervisor stable?
Hi Paul, I use Xen 3.4.2 in production on Centos with Windows 2003 server virtual machines using those GPL PV drivers. I put it into production in March this year I think.
The only stability problems I’ve had has been because my Xen servers are using an NFS root from an at times overloaded NFS server.
Thanks, Evan.
Evan Fraser
Senior Systems Analyst Peninsular House, 30 Monument Street London EC3R 8NB, United Kingdom Tel +44 20 7444 7860 Mobile +44 75 9024 5788 evan.fraser@rms.com www.rms.com
From: centos-virt-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-virt-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of Paul Piscuc Sent: 16 December 2010 09:01 To: centos-virt@centos.org Subject: [CentOS-virt] Xen version
Hi,
We are thinking of using CentOS with XEN in production, but we are facing some issues regarding the 3.0.3 version of the xen hypervisor and windows paravirtualization. The drivers we are using are from here (http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenWindowsGplPv). The solution we found is upgrading to xen 3.4.2, using a strange repository (gitco.dehttp://gitco.de), and everything seems to work. Now the question is: would you recomand using the 3.0.3 kernel provided by CentOS in production and searching for other paravirtualization drivers, or go with 3.4.2? Is this version of the hypervisor stable?
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Paul Piscuc writes:
« HTML content follows » Hi,
We are thinking of using CentOS with XEN in production, but we are facing some issues regarding the 3.0.3 version of the xen hypervisor and windows paravirtualization. The drivers we are using are from here (URL:http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenWindowsGplPvhttp://wiki.xensour ce.com/xenwiki/XenWindowsGplPv). The solution we found is upgrading to xen 3.4.2, using a strange repository (URL:http://gitco.degitco.de), and everything seems to work. Now the question is: would you recomand using the 3.0.3 kernel provided by CentOS in production and searching for other paravirtualization drivers, or go with 3.4.2? Is this version of the hypervisor stable?
Why get complicated and not use KVM? Xen's future @ RedHat is not that bright.
My 2 pence.
-- Nux! www.nux.ro
On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 2:19 AM, nux@li.nux.ro wrote:
Paul Piscuc writes:
« HTML content follows » Hi,
We are thinking of using CentOS with XEN in production, but we are facing some issues regarding the 3.0.3 version of the xen hypervisor and windows paravirtualization. The drivers we are using are from here (URL:http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenWindowsGplPv
ce.com/xenwiki/XenWindowsGplPv). The solution we found is upgrading to
xen
3.4.2, using a strange repository (URL:http://gitco.degitco.de), and everything seems to work. Now the question is: would you recomand using the 3.0.3 kernel provided by CentOS in production and searching for other paravirtualization drivers, or go with 3.4.2? Is this version of the hypervisor stable?
Why get complicated and not use KVM? Xen's future @ RedHat is not that bright.
My 2 pence.
-- Nux! www.nux.ro
Yes, installing Xen 3.4.2 is very complicated. It's amazing how anyone can pull it off! :-)
wget http://www.gitco.de/linux/x86_64/centos/5/CentOS-GITCO.repo -O /etc/yum.repos.d/gitco.repo yum groupinstall Virtualization
Or you could just put in an XCP install disk and take a nap. You'd have the very stable RHEL 5.5 base for Dom0, Xen 3.4.2 and a kernel roughly equivalent to what you get in RHEL6. For the record RHEL6 guests run on Xen as will any future Linux Distros.
Grant McWilliams
On Dec 16, 2010, at 1:01 AM, Paul Piscuc wrote:
Hi,
We are thinking of using CentOS with XEN in production, but we are facing some issues regarding the 3.0.3 version of the xen hypervisor and windows paravirtualization. The drivers we are using are from here (http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenWindowsGplPv). The solution we found is upgrading to xen 3.4.2, using a strange repository (gitco.de), and everything seems to work. Now the question is: would you recomand using the 3.0.3 kernel provided by CentOS in production and searching for other paravirtualization drivers, or go with 3.4.2? Is this version of the hypervisor stable?
While gitco isn't really that "strange" (as I'm pretty sure its widely deployed judging from comments on this list) I've never got around to upgrading to it. I've got more than a dozen Windows VMs: XP, 2003 32 and 64 bit, all running on 3.0.3 (actually is Xen 3.1.2 with 3.0.3 dom0 tools on el5.5, check your "xm dmesg" output).
Anyhow, it's been stable "enough" for me, currently on version 0.10.0.142 of the GPL PV drivers. Actually I don't use it for my production stuff either, but since in my experience it's significantly faster than other virt platforms, we use it where I feel is appropriate. Here's my one exception: one of my boxes (was XP) would keep blue-screening (irql_not_less_than_or_equal (sp?) ), another one of our sysadmins located it to be an issue with the on-demand/live virus scanner software; switched to a different product and the problem went away. I also had another different XP box have the same error for awhile back in early 2009 and that arrived and went away with upgrades of xen on the host. But in the last two years I've never had issue with Server 2003, or (very limited use) 2008.
Eric
nux@li.nux.ro writes:
Why get complicated and not use KVM? Xen's future @ RedHat is not that bright.
while I agree that Xen's future at redhat does not sound bright (I was working as a virutalization guy at a large company with a large RHEL installed base. as soon as RedHat bought Qumranet, all our Xen support people (and several higher-ups) came out to give fancy "xen sucks" presentations, even though KVM was clearly not ready for prime time at the moment.)
The question, though, is "when will KVM be ready?" for some things, it's ready and pretty good right now. If you have a computer that only needs to spin up a guest every now and again, kvm is alrealdy much better. managing a Xen dom0 is a pain in the ass and while it's worth it for my case where the servers do nothing but host virtual servers, it would suck for a desktop or for a server that primarily did other things. If you need a lot of guests, though? Xen is still the best choice, as far as I can tell.
I bought a friend's company that does what I do with KVM, so I am supporting KVM now, and will eventually open new orders for KVM guest, but it will be a long time (if ever) before I even think about moving everything over to KVM.
I don't know if the problem is kvm or drbd, but one guest swapstorming out of 8 brings the whole server to it's knees. When CentOS6 is out I'll be moving off of drbd on to local storage on a centos host, so we will see if the problem is, in fact drbd.
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Eric Searcy -
Evan Fraser -
Grant McWilliams -
Luke S Crawford -
nux＠li.nux.ro -
Paul Piscuc