On Wed, 2006-05-03 at 16:59 +0200, Jean Blignaut wrote: > 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 is almost, but not quite, completely unlike vserver ;-)
> 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) yes > 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. in theory yes, I don't know how well that is supported > 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) yes, Xen would act almost exactly like vmware, but without the performance penalties > > > My questions are: > > How would xen domUs compare to vserver? Vserver is linux only, low overhead, single kernel image Xen is generic and allows multiple independent kernels. In Vserver you can see all running processes on the host - in Xen you can't because different OSes may be running. > 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? No, the "micro OS" presents you abstracted ressources, that's why you have to change the kernel. Your instance should only see something like "generic block device 200G" > 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? In theory yes, as far as I know there are still issues with some hardware - sound support was broken last time I looked (quite some time ago :-) ) wkr, Patrick > -- > 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 I am a bavarian Virus. Please send me to all contacts in your address book and delete your harddisk. -- Stand still, and let the rest of the universe move
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