[gentoo-server] xen intel vt - slightly [OT]

[Jean Blignaut]

I have recently been investigating different virtualization solutions such as linuxvserver, bsd jails and xen.   This xen stuff is confusing the heck out of me at first I figured it was similar to a linux vserver setup (which I managed to get working just fine and with out much head scratching) but after a lot of scratching around I not so sure. It seems to me that while vserver is a modded linux kernel that xen is like a micro os that boots first and then boots into your dom0 (your primary os –with xennified kernel- whitch as I understand can control the others) Also it seems that you could have more than one of these privilidged osses installed at the same time sharing different parts of the hardware. It also seems that with new virtualization features in the latest intel/amd cpus that this hardware level sharing can be taken to a new level and that this would enable xen to run unmodified osses such as doors or freebsd (which currently has no xen dom0 support)   My questions are: How would xen domUs compare to vserver? How does this hardware sharing stuff work? Would I be able to control the same raid controller from inside several virtual machines at the same time – or in turns if it comes to that? I suppose that a more usefull example would be the graphics hardware: would you be able to utilize the full potential of your graphics hardware in these virtual machines? -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.5.2/329 - Release Date: 5/2/2006