On Apr 27, 2007, at 10:09 AM, John H. Robinson, IV wrote:
Now I get to ask technical questions: what host OS are we going to
use?
That, sir, is an excellent question. Since this is the host OS, it's
probably a simpler choice since we don't have to take much into
account beyond hardware and virtualization support.
Here are the options I see:
CentOS 4.4
+ Current Xen RPMs maintained by the Xen project themselves (http://
www.xensource.com/download/dl_304rhel4.html)
+ RHEL4 is explicitly supported by Intel (drivers, management
software - http://tinyurl.com/2rlz26), so presumably CentOS4 benefits
as well.
- Aging distribution of Linux, not remotely upgradable beyond patch
updates
CentOS 5
+ Xen integrated with OS by RedHat
- RHEL5 is very new distribution, and CentOS5 respin is even newer,
so not sure how many quirks remain
+ 7 years of distribution support guaranteed from RedHat
+/- Currently no specific support from Intel, but good chance there
will be in near future
Debian 4.0 ("Etch")
+ What we're running now (though not necessarily relevant since our
Guest OS could still be Debian regardless of host choice)
+ Good stability and long term support, future dist-upgrades can
easily be done over the wire
+ Debian is super GNU/FSF/SPI/OSS happy and gives our LUG that warm
and fuzzy feeling
- No Xen or KVM in base distro, will have to be added by hand
Ubuntu 7.0.4 ("Feisty")
+ KVM built into distribution
- Xen would have to be added by hand (may be unnecessary if we use
KVM?)
- Feisty is not one of Ubuntu's "LTS" (Long Term Support)
offerings, meaning it will need an upgrade within 18 months
+ Upgradable remotely
+ Good amount of community and commercial vendor mindshare, likely
to be well supported by vendors such as Intel and Xensource if its
growth continues
+ It's Debian at the core, so all sysadmin knowledge transfers
+ Most current kernel of all distributions (hence KVM availability)
So one big question is: KVM or Xen? I was originally assuming Xen,
but there's something to be said for the simplicity of KVM and the
fact that it's right there in the mainline kernel. For those who
don't know about it, here's a little reading that may be of interest:
http://kvm.qumranet.com/kvmwiki (project home)
http://tinyurl.com/3d5xad (good c|net article overview)
So... discuss! (This is getting technical... perhaps I should re-
post this to the main -list?)
--
Joshua Penix http://www.binarytribe.com
Binary Tribe Linux Integration Services & Network Consulting
--
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-steer
