On 5/25/2010 3:08 PM, Stephen Harris wrote: > On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 02:55:27PM -0500, Matt wrote: >> Is anyone using 'user mode linux' to create virtual centos servers >> under a master centos server? Is there a package for this? Is xen or >> something a better way to go? > > I use it all the time. I've written a tonne of my own wrapper scripts > to help manage the process and they kinda work. I can build and deploy > a new server in minutes. > > You need to be careful of UML, though. The kernel must _not_ allow > loadable modules, otherwise you have no host security at all. This > may limit it for general purpose stuff. Performance isn't necessarily > that good, either. > > I actually wrote up some basic investigation a couple of months back > where I looked at > 1. RedHat (ahem, sorry, CentOS!) 5.4 64bit Xen > 2. CentOS 5.4 64bit KVM > 3. Citrix XenServer 5.5 > 4. VMware ESXi 4.0 > 5. VirtualBox 2.2 > 6. VMware Server (version unknown) > 7. User Mode Linux (2.6.20.7 based kernel) > > The writeup is at > http://sweh.livejournal.com/362994.html Good article, but kind of outdated already - and doesn't mention the free vmware converter tool to move guests from physical machines to vmware or between esxi/server/portable image types which is one of the nicer points. If reinstalling the base OS is an option and you have a windows box to run the client, VMware ESXi is a good choice as the host even though the free version doesn't give you the nifty cloning features. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com