Xen users - Dec 2006 - HVM success story, now on server environment

I had the chance to test out one of the new Sun X2200 M2 servers for a
week or so, aiming to check out the status of HVM support on these machines.

The machine was a dual-Opteron dual-core, with 8GB RAM and 1 300GB SATA
disk.

Normally I tend to use Debian on my servers, but due to lack of needed
hardware support on Debian x86_64 images, and because I had very few
time to run the tests, I used an OpenSuse 10.1 x86_64, which runs on
these machines out-of-the-box, Xen 3.0.3 included.


I had to take care of limiting dom0_mem to prevent Windows installation
from freezing the entire machine (but this is documented), and had very
annoying glitches with mouse both in SDL (mouse not working at all) and
in VNC (mouse pointer in the virtualized environment not aligned with
"real" pointer).
I had not enough time to run behind this problem, so I just completed
the installation with keyboard only, to then reach the HVM through an
RDP connection.

For all the other issues, no problem at all.

I installed 2 HVMs, both Windows 2003R2 (one with 512MB ram and 1GB for
the other), tried out installing IIS and .NET framework, since the goal
is to virtualize W32 webservers.

Performance are really good (the two HVMs were more responsive then some
of the "real servers" running the same stuff), and the overall
impression has been really good but due to the short time we had to test
them I can''t say nothing more than this.


We''re now managing to buy an identical machine from our Sun vendor, and
will run more tests and simulate a production environment on it, so
further informations will come in the future.


Bye!

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Skull <skull@bofhland.org> writes:
> Normally I tend to use Debian on my servers, but due to lack of needed
> hardware support on Debian x86_64 images, and because I had very few
> time to run the tests, I used an OpenSuse 10.1 x86_64, which runs on
> these machines out-of-the-box, Xen 3.0.3 included.
Current daily images of Debian Installer has support for it and are
using 2.6.18 kernels :-D
> I had to take care of limiting dom0_mem to prevent Windows installation
> from freezing the entire machine (but this is documented), and had very
> annoying glitches with mouse both in SDL (mouse not working at all) and
> in VNC (mouse pointer in the virtualized environment not aligned with
> "real" pointer).
I have this VNC mouse pointer problem here too.

-- 
Otavio Salvador                  O.S. Systems
E-mail: otavio@ossystems.com.br  http://www.ossystems.com.br
Mobile: +55 53 9981-7854         http://projetos.ossystems.com.br

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> > I had to take care of limiting dom0_mem to prevent Windows
installation
> > from freezing the entire machine (but this is documented), and had
very
> > annoying glitches with mouse both in SDL (mouse not working at all)
and
> > in VNC (mouse pointer in the virtualized environment not aligned with
> > "real" pointer).
> 
> I have this VNC mouse pointer problem here too.
This probs envitiable with vnc apparently, but I read it can be worked
around by serving vnc from inside the windows session and connecting to
that.

As for the sdl mouse issue i just want to say, not that i want to take
delight in your difficulty, but - thank god im not the only one - i
havent been able to figure it out and thought it was just me

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Glenn Davy wrote:
> This probs envitiable with vnc apparently, but I read it can be worked
> around by serving vnc from inside the windows session and connecting to
> that.
Yes, but that session won''t be reachable when the network is down in
the VM.
Xen''s VNC session is a complete different thing, since allows you to
*always* take control over (or at least see what''s going on) the VM
even
if it has no connectivity or it''s shutting down.

Or if you want to do delegate the entire installation process to the
"end-user": with a working VNC session from XEN, you''ll just
need to set
the initial parameters and boot the VM. You then just allow the virtual
machine wannabe-admin to reach the right VNC session and he''ll be able
to do the entire installation process by himself...


A lot different, IMHO...

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Skull skrev den 03-12-2006 09:20:
> Glenn Davy wrote:
>   
>> This probs envitiable with vnc apparently, but I read it can be worked
>> around by serving vnc from inside the windows session and connecting to
>> that.
>>     
>
> Yes, but that session won''t be reachable when the network is down
in the VM.
> Xen''s VNC session is a complete different thing, since allows you
to
> *always* take control over (or at least see what''s going on) the
VM even
> if it has no connectivity or it''s shutting down.
>
> Or if you want to do delegate the entire installation process to the
> "end-user": with a working VNC session from XEN, you''ll
just need to set
> the initial parameters and boot the VM. You then just allow the virtual
> machine wannabe-admin to reach the right VNC session and he''ll be
able
> to do the entire installation process by himself...
>   
A little question on that matter. How do I control, which vnc-session is 
assigned to a domU ?


-- 
Morten Christensen


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Morten Christensen wrote:
> A little question on that matter. How do I control, which vnc-session is
> assigned to a domU ?
This is just what I understood:
just sum the default port 5900 + domain ID.

So VM at DomID 5 is on port 5905, and so on...


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Skull skrev den 03-12-2006 15:38:
> Morten Christensen wrote:
>
>   
>> A little question on that matter. How do I control, which vnc-session
is
>> assigned to a domU ?
>>     
>
> This is just what I understood:
> just sum the default port 5900 + domain ID.
>
> So VM at DomID 5 is on port 5905, and so on...
>   
As far as I have understood, then vnc is on a display-number, and that 
is not related to the domID. On the other hand I do not understand 
anything, and it does not work for me ........

--
Morten Christensen


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Morten Christensen wrote:
> As far as I have understood, then vnc is on a display-number, and that
Yes, and the display number X itself is nothing more than a +X in the
TCP port connection, starting from the default 5900...
> is not related to the domID. On the other hand I do not understand
> anything, and it does not work for me ........
Dunno, this test has been the firts one with HVM (and Xen''s VNC display
export), and the rule above worked for me, at least...

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com
> [mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of
> Morten Christensen
> Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2006 8:22 AM
> To: Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> Subject: Re: [Xen-users] HVM success story, now on server environment
>
>
> Skull skrev den 03-12-2006 15:38:
> > Morten Christensen wrote:
> >
> >
> >> A little question on that matter. How do I control, which
> vnc-session
> >> is assigned to a domU ?
> >>
> >
> > This is just what I understood:
> > just sum the default port 5900 + domain ID.
> >
> > So VM at DomID 5 is on port 5905, and so on...
> >
> As far as I have understood, then vnc is on a display-number,
> and that
> is not related to the domID. On the other hand I do not understand
> anything, and it does not work for me ........
>
According to the documenation that I''ve read:
#xm list
Then point VNC at the IP of the physical machine:domainID

This has worked for me every time.  There is a caveate in the release notes
(this may be SUSE specific and may not apply to your linux distro) that if
remote VNC administration has been enabled for the physical server itself,
that it can interfer with VNC connections to the guests.

-Alain.




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On Sat, Dec 02, 2006 at 03:40:06PM -0200, Otavio Salvador
wrote:
> Skull <skull@bofhland.org> writes:
> > I had to take care of limiting dom0_mem to prevent Windows
installation
> > from freezing the entire machine (but this is documented), and had
very
> > annoying glitches with mouse both in SDL (mouse not working at all)
and
> > in VNC (mouse pointer in the virtualized environment not aligned with
> > "real" pointer).
> 
> I have this VNC mouse pointer problem here too.
Put

usb=1
usbdevice=''tablet''

In the domU config file and you''ll find the mouse works much better
with VNC.  This emulates a tablet rather than a mouse which works
better for some reason I don''t understand!  No idea about SDL - never
tried it.

-- 
Nick Craig-Wood <nick@craig-wood.com> -- http://www.craig-wood.com/nick

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FYI,

Someone told in this list that disabling hardware pointer on windows
solved the problem (I can''t find his post).

[]''s



On Sat, 2006-12-02 at 15:40 -0200, Otavio Salvador
wrote:
> Skull <skull@bofhland.org> writes:
> 
> > Normally I tend to use Debian on my servers, but due to lack of needed
> > hardware support on Debian x86_64 images, and because I had very few
> > time to run the tests, I used an OpenSuse 10.1 x86_64, which runs on
> > these machines out-of-the-box, Xen 3.0.3 included.
> 
> Current daily images of Debian Installer has support for it and are
> using 2.6.18 kernels :-D
> 
> > I had to take care of limiting dom0_mem to prevent Windows
installation
> > from freezing the entire machine (but this is documented), and had
very
> > annoying glitches with mouse both in SDL (mouse not working at all)
and
> > in VNC (mouse pointer in the virtualized environment not aligned with
> > "real" pointer).
> 
> I have this VNC mouse pointer problem here too.
> 

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