xen discuss - Dec 2005 - [xen-discuss] Xen and Intel VTx and AMD Pacifica

I know, maybe this is a bit ''trolling'' but...

If Xen will support the upcoming VTx and Pacifica virtualization extensions to
the Intel and AMD processors, that will able xen to run unmodified os''s
transparently...

Appart from executing Solaris on Xen over current CPUs... why do you spent time
modifying solaris kernel to be able to virtualize over xen?

I (really) want to know if there''s a technical mid/long term advantage
on adapting Solaris...

Cheers :-)
This message posted from opensolaris.org

xen 3.0 has been a while coming. it is finally out and once the
virtualization is put into HW (where it belongs IMHO) then it all
becomes a moot point. Run any x86/64 OS without mods so yes I wouldn''t
spend much time working on the xen 2.x port of Solaris (and I don''t
think Sun is either).

More worth the time and effort would be Sun''s "Branded Zones"
which
uses Solaris10 as the hypervisor and can run Linux, *BSD & possibly
windows. That will be very big competition for Xen and VMware because
of Solaris''  fine grain control of resources.

On 12/8/05, David S?nchez Mart?n <davidrepking at gmail.com>
wrote:
> I know, maybe this is a bit ''trolling'' but...
>
> If Xen will support the upcoming VTx and Pacifica virtualization extensions
to the Intel and AMD processors, that will able xen to run unmodified
os''s transparently...
>
> Appart from executing Solaris on Xen over current CPUs... why do you spent
time modifying solaris kernel to be able to virtualize over xen?
>
> I (really) want to know if there''s a technical mid/long term
advantage on adapting Solaris...
>
> Cheers :-)

On Thu, 8 Dec 2005, [UTF-8] David S?nchez Mart?n wrote:
> I know, maybe this is a bit ''trolling'' but...
>
> If Xen will support the upcoming VTx and Pacifica virtualization 
> extensions to the Intel and AMD processors, that will able xen to run 
> unmodified os''s transparently...
VT/Pacifica support is already in progress for Xen, as I understand it 
anyway.
> Appart from executing Solaris on Xen over current CPUs... why do you 
> spent time modifying solaris kernel to be able to virtualize over xen?
>
> I (really) want to know if there''s a technical mid/long term
advantage
> on adapting Solaris...
1. Performance

I''m not sure about the memory management side of things, but IO ought
to
be faster if done via the Xen IPC protocol, rather than through 
essentially emulated hardware.

2. Dom0 support

Requires supporting Xen natively I think.

regards,

--paulj

On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 11:30 -0700, Tim McMurphy wrote:
> xen 3.0 has been a while coming. it is finally out and once the
> virtualization is put into HW (where it belongs IMHO) then it all
> becomes a moot point.
A mostly moot point :-)   Doesn''t dom0 still require
paravirtualization ?   There would also seem to be a performance
consideration for taking the ring0 traps rather than making the
equivalent hypervisor call.   Plus the consideration that there are in
fact very few VT-x/Pacifica systems out there compared to the
rather-inconvenient-to-virtualize x86/Opteron/EM64T suggests that
paravirtualization might be worth the effort. 

I would think that Solaris would make a very good dom0 <insert
FMA and MPO soapbox here> should such a capability ever materialize.
> More worth the time and effort would be Sun''s "Branded
Zones" which
> uses Solaris10 as the hypervisor and can run Linux, *BSD & possibly
> windows. That will be very big competition for Xen and VMware because
> of Solaris''  fine grain control of resources.
Solaris as a Hypervisor - has sort of a nice ring to it.  I should think
that observability (aka DTrace) would another advantage.   After playing
with both of them, ZFS clones are *much* easier to figure out and use
than LVM COW (and no, I''m not calling LVM a cow, I mean copy-on-write).


Bob

* davidrepking at gmail.com [20051208T181132]:
> Apart from executing Solaris on Xen over current CPUs... why do you
> spent time modifying solaris kernel to be able to virtualize over
> xen?
Using Solaris in domain 0 requires that it be ported.  Given that we
are interested in having a great domain 0 OS, we have to do that work.

If you''re interested in running Solaris as a guest then the biggest
reason to port is performance.  Porting to the para-virtualised
interface provided for guests by Xen will produce a better performing
system, both for the guest OS and the machine as a whole.

dme.
-- 
David Edmondson, Solaris Engineering, Sun Microsystems.

Who wants to run Solaris as Dom0 ?
Linux has a much wider HW support than Solaris X86. The only reason for me
to run Solaris on Xen is the standard HW interface Xen provides to
Solaris.

BTW: Are there any plans to release the software, or is this project dead ?

Sincerely
Bernhard
> * davidrepking at gmail.com [20051208T181132]:
>> Apart from executing Solaris on Xen over current CPUs... why do you
>> spent time modifying solaris kernel to be able to virtualize over
>> xen?
>
> Using Solaris in domain 0 requires that it be ported.  Given that we
> are interested in having a great domain 0 OS, we have to do that work.
>
> If you''re interested in running Solaris as a guest then the
biggest
> reason to port is performance.  Porting to the para-virtualised
> interface provided for guests by Xen will produce a better performing
> system, both for the guest OS and the machine as a whole.
>
> dme.
> --
> David Edmondson, Solaris Engineering, Sun Microsystems.
> _______________________________________________
> xen-discuss mailing list
> xen-discuss at opensolaris.org
>

* bernhard.duebi at schweiz.ch [20051215T071908]:
> Who wants to run Solaris as Dom0 ?
Me!  :-)

Everyone is going to make their own decision about the best way to
deploy Xen.  It''s good that you get the choice.  When you make the
decision to use something other than Solaris we''d like to understand
your reasons, in case they are something that we should address.
> Linux has a much wider HW support than Solaris X86.
Definitely true at the moment, though maybe in the server arena this
is both less true and less important.
> The only reason for me to run Solaris on Xen is the standard HW
> interface Xen provides to Solaris.
Can you say a bit more about this?

It seems that you have a need/desire to use Solaris and that hardware
compatibility is a barrier to that.  What hardware?
> BTW: Are there any plans to release the software, or is this project
> dead ?
At the moment the focus is on the Xen 3.x port of Solaris together
with working through any legal stuff necessary to release the code.
This will probably be a 32 bit uniprocessor domU at first, with 64
bit, SMP and dom0 following on (not necessarily in that order).

dme.
-- 
David Edmondson, Solaris Engineering, Sun Microsystems.

> Who wants to run Solaris as Dom0 ?
> Linux has a much wider HW support than Solaris X86. The only reason for me
> to run Solaris on Xen is the standard HW interface Xen provides to
> Solaris.
Hmm - I''d like to see a DTrace hypercall::: provider :)

There are some good technical reasons why a Solaris dom0 is
interesting. Solaris observability is definitely one.

Now, seriously, it''ll strongly depend on what your preferred
environment is, whom you bought support and/or hardware from,
and so on. It''s a question of choice. If I don''t want choice
for what to run as dom0 then I''ll go for Microsoft Virtual
Server or VMWare GSX/ESX. Or I''ll use BSD Jails, Solaris Zones
or Linux VServers and stay within one OS environment completely.

Else, I don''t see why there shouldn''t be a BSD or a Solaris
dom0
for Xen. That''s why Xen is an interface specification. It''s
young,
it''s evolving, and just because it''s been prototyped on Linux
does not mean it''ll never propagate anywhere else. You know, life
hasn''t stayed in the seas, even though the sea is more than 95% of
the volume of the inhabitable biosphere on this planet.

FrankH.


> 
> BTW: Are there any plans to release the software, or is this project dead ?
> 
> Sincerely
> Bernhard
> 
> > * davidrepking at gmail.com [20051208T181132]:
> >> Apart from executing Solaris on Xen over current CPUs... why do
you
> >> spent time modifying solaris kernel to be able to virtualize over
> >> xen?
> >
> > Using Solaris in domain 0 requires that it be ported.  Given that we
> > are interested in having a great domain 0 OS, we have to do that work.
> >
> > If you''re interested in running Solaris as a guest then the
biggest
> > reason to port is performance.  Porting to the para-virtualised
> > interface provided for guests by Xen will produce a better performing
> > system, both for the guest OS and the machine as a whole.
> >
> > dme.
> > --
> > David Edmondson, Solaris Engineering, Sun Microsystems.
> > _______________________________________________
> > xen-discuss mailing list
> > xen-discuss at opensolaris.org
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> xen-discuss mailing list
> xen-discuss at opensolaris.org

> * bernhard.duebi at schweiz.ch [20051215T071908]:
>> Who wants to run Solaris as Dom0 ?
>
> Me!  :-)
>
> Everyone is going to make their own decision about the best way to
> deploy Xen.  It''s good that you get the choice.  When you make the
> decision to use something other than Solaris we''d like to
understand
> your reasons, in case they are something that we should address.
>
>> Linux has a much wider HW support than Solaris X86.
>
> Definitely true at the moment, though maybe in the server arena this
> is both less true and less important.
At the moment we are using HP DLxxx, but this could change to IBM or Dell.
For SAN connections we use Emulex HBAs.
I never ran Solaris on X86, but SUN engineers told me that Solaris runs
more stable in a vmware machine (std HW interface) than on real HW.
>> The only reason for me to run Solaris on Xen is the standard HW
>> interface Xen provides to Solaris.
>
> Can you say a bit more about this?
Client Domains don''t need to know abount Ethernet / FibreChannel /
RaidController / ... it uses the Xen way to talk to the Net / Storage.
> It seems that you have a need/desire to use Solaris and that hardware
> compatibility is a barrier to that.  What hardware?
>
>> BTW: Are there any plans to release the software, or is this project
>> dead ?
>
> At the moment the focus is on the Xen 3.x port of Solaris together
> with working through any legal stuff necessary to release the code.
> This will probably be a 32 bit uniprocessor domU at first, with 64
> bit, SMP and dom0 following on (not necessarily in that order).
>
> dme.
> --
> David Edmondson, Solaris Engineering, Sun Microsystems.
> _______________________________________________
> xen-discuss mailing list
> xen-discuss at opensolaris.org
>

> > Who wants to run Solaris as Dom0 ?
>
> Me!  :-)
>
Hello, me too.
Solaris fans are going to increase.

Noniko

On Thu, 2005-12-15 at 08:41, Bernhard Duebi wrote:
> Who wants to run Solaris as Dom0 ?
I do and I want to do that because I want the most robust system
I can to be the hypervisor.  I know Solaris much better than an I
know Linux (and I''ve been using Linux since 0.98 kernel days so I
know it pretty well but I know Solaris very well).

I want the ability to have things like FMA in dom0.  I''m also
very interesting in using the Solaris Cryptographic Framework in
dom0 to provide HW crypto services to domUs running Linux and Solaris.
> Linux has a much wider HW support than Solaris X86. The only reason for me
But not all of that HW support is always required and I know from
personal experience that not all of the drivers are actually good
quality.

Mostly for Xen though it will be disk and network drivers that matter
and for modernish hardware the gap between Solaris and Linux isn''t
that big anyway.

-- 
Darren J Moffat

i seem to recall sun having a really advanced storage subsystem.  thats one of
the few responsibilities left up to the host OS, and a place solaris might
excel.</2c>
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Oh yea that zfs thing! How quickly I forget. All the features of a
major league SAN without all the cost. Nobody would ever want that to
run all their virtuals under  ;)

On 12/15/05, Rektide <rektide at gmail.com> wrote:
> i seem to recall sun having a really advanced storage subsystem.  thats one
of the few responsibilities left up to the host OS, and a place solaris might
excel.</2c>
> This message posted from opensolaris.org
> _______________________________________________
> xen-discuss mailing list
> xen-discuss at opensolaris.org
>

[i]> Else, I don''t see why there shouldn''t be a BSD or
a
> Solaris dom0
> for Xen. [/i]
 There already is a BSD XEN dom0 ...

See <http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/xen/howto.html#netbsd-domain0>
This message posted from opensolaris.org

[i]> Else, I don''t see why there shouldn''t be a BSD or
a
> Solaris dom0
> for Xen. 
[/i]

There already is a BSD XEN dom0 ...

See <http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/xen/howto.html#netbsd-domain0>
This message posted from opensolaris.org

> > > Who wants to run Solaris as Dom0 ?
> >
> > Me! :-)
> >
> Hello, me too.
++
Me too.  Mostly because I want ZFS on my dom0.  ZFS on a domU seems rather...
useless.  ZFS on dom0 means all my other OS could benefit from ZFS.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

On 5/24/06, Wesley Wexell <wwexell@heidewexell.net>
wrote:
> > > > Who wants to run Solaris as Dom0 ?
> > >
> > > Me! :-)
> > >
> > Hello, me too.
>
> ++
++
> Me too.  Mostly because I want ZFS on my dom0.  ZFS on a domU seems
rather... useless.  ZFS on dom0 means all my other OS could benefit from ZFS.
>
>
> This message posted from opensolaris.org
> _______________________________________________
> xen-discuss mailing list
> xen-discuss@opensolaris.org
>
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