I did something along these lines on my own: I needed a way to carry my
email archive with me, and I needed to be able to access it both on
Windows and on OS-X. The solution I came up with was to create a tiny
linux installation < http://gentoo-wiki.com/TinyGentoo > and put it in a
500MB disk image that I store on one of my FAT32 thumbdrives. The
installation is basically just busybox and the dovecot IMAP server. I
can run it using Qemu on linux, windows and OS-X. Then I just fire up
my favorite email client, and I can browse and save emails on the
virtual IMAP appliance.
Cheers!
--Aaron V.
Wade Curry wrote:
Gregory K. Ruiz-Ade([EMAIL PROTECTED])@Mon, Aug 21, 2006 at 09:08:00AM -0700:
On Aug 21, 2006, at 12:09 AM, Todd Walton wrote:
Seems like a lot of overhead to me. (But isn't that the story of
practical computing?)
Honestly, I like the idea of virtual appliances, especially for large/
complex software packages. I'd be really cool if, say, there was a
Plone virtual appliance that I could download and fire up in VMware
Player (or Server) and simply assign network settings and names to,
instead of having to grind it all into place manually.
This part of the equation where settings are intelligently
preconfigured, and networking is more modular. Less manual details
to twiddle is good.
I do find it difficult, however, to set up an application that does
all the work behind the scenes. Especially where the abstraction
that is presented to the user actually misrepresents the underlying
structure. Knowing the structure and details of the environment or
application should always *help*, regardless.
IMO the CUPS configuration is done right. Regardless of whether
you use the CLI or the web interface, the configuration is straight
forward, and clear - I've never used the other graphical
configuration tools for CUPS.
The point is that these virtual appliances could easily cause just
as much of an issue with configuration as the regular applications,
depending on how they put it all together. Here's hoping it really
does get better, not just "easier".
Kind of like the concept of LiveCDs, I suppose, but slightly different.
Identical, really, except different! ;-)
As a side note, I've taken to using VMware extensively for trying out
various OS LiveCD images. Actually _very_ handy.
I thought virtualization was cool when VMware first came on the
scene. Now that the average new computer has processing power to
spare, I really think virtualization has finally become practical.
I think it still matters how well you use the power of the machine.
While it may not matter for many applications, there are
applications that carry quite a load, and adding the overhead of a
VM, kernel, etc, for each server application just doesn't seem to
me like the best use of resources.
I'm not putting down the use of virtual machines at all. I simply
suspect there is a better methodology for application installation.
If there is a need to run in a virtual server, would it be any
better to use Xen, UML, or another OSS solution? Plus there are
already virtual server solutions and the ability to run chrooted
servers. I would need a lot more convincing that VMWare based
virtual appliances are going to take network applications in the
best direction.
Wade Curry
syntaxman
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