On Sun, Jan 1, 2012 at 11:18 AM, Tanstaafl <tansta...@libertytrek.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm looking into virtualizing my servers (all 3 of them), and am a little
> confused as to the differences between Xen and XenServer...
Think of it as a bit like the difference between Linux and a Linux
distribution. "Xen" is the name of the hypervisor, XenServer is the
hypervisor plus some support tools in a dom0.
While I haven't played with XenServer, I have played with its
open-source clone, XCP, and was very annoyed by it. I'd rather run a
Gentoo dom0.
>
> First - I want to use a bare metal hypervisor that supports the following:
>
> 1. Can be installed on a USB FLASH drive (I have some Dell Poweredge 2970
> servers with the internal USB slot for just this purpose), and
I don't think I've heard of anyone doing this, but I don't see why
it'd be a problem.
> 2. Fully supports both Windows Server 2008 (our Domain Controller), and
> Gentoo Linux (our mail and web servers).
The xen supports hvm, where it emulates hardware; in a full hvm VM,
*any* operating system comfortable on x86 should run.
There's also paravirtualization, which is faster, and is likely what
you're thinking of wrt 'bare metal'. Signed drivers for paravirt mode
for hardware (such as your network, disk or system clock) are
available for current versions of Windows.
Finally, on some server hardware, you can grant VMs access to
particular PCI and PCIe devices.
> By 'fully' above, I mean, I can install the guest tools/additions, so I'll
> be able to safely manage the VMs (shutdown in case of an extended power
> failure, snapshots, migrations, etc)
>
> I can't seem to find an ebuild for the xenserver tools, and when looking
> found out about Xen (I had thought that it went away a long time ago)...
"eix xen" shows a few relevant results:
* app-emulation/xen
Available versions: 3.4.2-r4!t 4.1.1-r2!t ~4.1.2!t {acm
custom-cflags debug flask pae xsm}
Homepage: http://xen.org/
Description: The Xen virtual machine monitor
* app-emulation/xen-pvgrub
Available versions: 4.1.1-r1 ~4.1.2 {custom-cflags}
Homepage: http://xen.org/
Description: allows to boot Xen domU kernels from a
menu.lst laying inside guest filesystem
* app-emulation/xen-tools
Available versions: 3.4.2-r3 ~3.4.2-r5 ~4.1.1-r5 4.1.1-r6
~4.1.2-r2!t {acm api custom-cflags debug doc flask hvm pygrub qemu
screen xend}
Homepage: http://xen.org/
Description: Xend daemon and tools
* sec-policy/selinux-xen
Available versions: [M]2.20110726
Homepage: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/hardened/selinux/
Description: SELinux policy for xen
* sys-kernel/xen-sources
Available versions:
(2.6.18-r12) 2.6.18-r12!b!s
(2.6.34-r3) ~2.6.34-r3!b!s
(2.6.34-r4) ~2.6.34-r4!b!s
(2.6.38) ~2.6.38!b!s
{build deblob symlink}
Homepage: http://xen.org/
Description: Full sources for a dom0/domU Linux kernel to
run under Xen
>
> Anyway, looking for any pointers from anyone currently running either of the
> two...
Not currently, but had some experience with it at work and at home,
plan to get back into it later this month.
--
:wq
