Hello, I am looking for an stable OS to use as dom0 for xen-3.4.1? What platform would be the best choice? mjb
Maciej Jan Broniarz <gausus@gausus.net> writes:> Hello, > > I am looking for an stable OS to use as dom0 for xen-3.4.1? What platform would be the best choice?They all have their ups and downs. On the penguin side, I think the only options worth considering for a production setup is 1. what I currently use (CentOS5 with the xen.org 2.6.18-8-xen kernel and xen tools) This is pretty stable, you get all the features of the latest stable xen.org release, and CentOS userland is pretty comfortable with a 2.6.18 kernel (as that is what CentOS5 expects.) this setup works with OpenSolaris guests. 2. CentOS/RHEL5 with the CentOS/RHEL5 xen stuff This is actually a hacked up version of xen 3.1/3.0.3 but it''s hacked up so that it now has support for most important things (paravirt_ops guests, I mean.) My observation using it with a large client is that it seems slightly less stable than the xen.org xen kernel, but that might be just ''cause I cared more about my stuff (and because fewer people have access to my stuff, nobody is touching the ram without ESD protection, etc...) but I did see some weird problems that i didn''t see with xen.org. I would strongly caution you to avoid the debian (or ubuntu) port of the SUSE forward-port of the xen patch to 2.6.26/2.6.27. Evidence suggests they are not pulling bugfixes from the suse xen bugfix tree after they pulled the initial patch. I spent a bunch of time last night fucking around trying to get it to work as a guest (the ''time went backwards'' problem upon save/restore) This means that until the next major release of xen (which, I am assured, will use a reasonably modern linux kernel) I''m stuck with a 2.6.18 dom0 if I want to continue to use Linux. -- If you don''t want to use Linux, there is NetBSD5 and OpenSolaris. The problem with opensolaris, last time I checked, was that it didn''t support paravirt_ops linux guests, and didn''t support pvgrub. For me, those two are dealbreakers. Especially the first. I don''t want to be in the business of maintaining my customer''s kernels. They are paying me for flexibility, and they are not paying enough for handholding, so it''s essential that my stuff works in a standard manner . However, I imagine those things are being worked on (and OpenSolaris may even have those features right now; it just didn''t a few months ago when I was screwing with it.) Speaking of, has anyone figured out how to boot opensolaris as a guest using PVGRUB? I have it working with PyGRUB, but I have all my customers on PVGRUB. Personally, I''m getting pretty tired of dealing with 2.6.18, so my next server will be built with NetBSD5. I had great success with NetBSD 3/Xen2, but I haven''t used NetBSD5 outside of testing, so we will see how it goes. -- Luke S. Crawford http://prgmr.com/xen/ - Hosting for the technically adept http://nostarch.com/xen.htm - We don''t assume you are stupid.
> However, I imagine those things are being worked on (and OpenSolaris > may even have those features right now; it just didn''t a few months > ago when I was screwing with it.)Status with build SNV_123:- http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?messageID=420921 Boris. ________________________________ From: Luke S Crawford <lsc@prgmr.com> To: Maciej Jan Broniarz <gausus@gausus.net> Cc: xen-discuss@opensolaris.org Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 12:11:22 PM Subject: Re: [xen-discuss] best OS for dom0 Maciej Jan Broniarz <gausus@gausus.net> writes:> Hello, > > I am looking for an stable OS to use as dom0 for xen-3.4.1? What platform would be the best choice?They all have their ups and downs. On the penguin side, I think the only options worth considering for a production setup is 1. what I currently use (CentOS5 with the xen.org 2.6.18-8-xen kernel and xen tools) This is pretty stable, you get all the features of the latest stable xen.org release, and CentOS userland is pretty comfortable with a 2.6.18 kernel (as that is what CentOS5 expects.) this setup works with OpenSolaris guests. 2. CentOS/RHEL5 with the CentOS/RHEL5 xen stuff This is actually a hacked up version of xen 3.1/3.0.3 but it''s hacked up so that it now has support for most important things (paravirt_ops guests, I mean.) My observation using it with a large client is that it seems slightly less stable than the xen.org xen kernel, but that might be just ''cause I cared more about my stuff (and because fewer people have access to my stuff, nobody is touching the ram without ESD protection, etc...) but I did see some weird problems that i didn''t see with xen.org. I would strongly caution you to avoid the debian (or ubuntu) port of the SUSE forward-port of the xen patch to 2.6.26/2.6.27. Evidence suggests they are not pulling bugfixes from the suse xen bugfix tree after they pulled the initial patch. I spent a bunch of time last night fucking around trying to get it to work as a guest (the ''time went backwards'' problem upon save/restore) This means that until the next major release of xen (which, I am assured, will use a reasonably modern linux kernel) I''m stuck with a 2.6.18 dom0 if I want to continue to use Linux. -- If you don''t want to use Linux, there is NetBSD5 and OpenSolaris. The problem with opensolaris, last time I checked, was that it didn''t support paravirt_ops linux guests, and didn''t support pvgrub. For me, those two are dealbreakers. Especially the first. I don''t want to be in the business of maintaining my customer''s kernels. They are paying me for flexibility, and they are not paying enough for handholding, so it''s essential that my stuff works in a standard manner . However, I imagine those things are being worked on (and OpenSolaris may even have those features right now; it just didn''t a few months ago when I was screwing with it.) Speaking of, has anyone figured out how to boot opensolaris as a guest using PVGRUB? I have it working with PyGRUB, but I have all my customers on PVGRUB. Personally, I''m getting pretty tired of dealing with 2.6.18, so my next server will be built with NetBSD5. I had great success with NetBSD 3/Xen2, but I haven''t used NetBSD5 outside of testing, so we will see how it goes. -- Luke S. Crawford http://prgmr.com/xen/ - Hosting for the technically adept http://nostarch.com/xen.htm - We don''t assume you are stupid. _______________________________________________ xen-discuss mailing list xen-discuss@opensolaris.org
Luke S Crawford schrieb:> Maciej Jan Broniarz <gausus@gausus.net> writes: > > >> Hello, >> >> I am looking for an stable OS to use as dom0 for xen-3.4.1? What platform would be the best choice? >> > > They all have their ups and downs. On the penguin side, I think the > only options worth considering for a production setup is > > 1. what I currently use (CentOS5 with the xen.org 2.6.18-8-xen kernel > and xen tools) > > This is pretty stable, you get all the features of the latest stable > xen.org release, and CentOS userland is pretty comfortable with a > 2.6.18 kernel (as that is what CentOS5 expects.) > > this setup works with OpenSolaris guests. > > > 2. CentOS/RHEL5 with the CentOS/RHEL5 xen stuff > > This is actually a hacked up version of xen 3.1/3.0.3 but it''s > hacked up so that it now has support for most important things > (paravirt_ops guests, I mean.) > > My observation using it with a large client is that it seems slightly > less stable than the xen.org xen kernel, but that might be just ''cause > I cared more about my stuff (and because fewer people have access to my > stuff, nobody is touching the ram without ESD protection, etc...) > but I did see some weird problems that i didn''t see with xen.org. > > > I would strongly caution you to avoid the debian (or ubuntu) port of the > SUSE forward-port of the xen patch to 2.6.26/2.6.27. Evidence suggests > they are not pulling bugfixes from the suse xen bugfix tree after they pulled > the initial patch. I spent a bunch of time last night fucking around > trying to get it to work as a guest (the ''time went backwards'' problem > upon save/restore) > > This means that until the next major release of xen (which, I am assured, > will use a reasonably modern linux kernel) I''m stuck with a 2.6.18 dom0 > if I want to continue to use Linux. > > -- > If you don''t want to use Linux, there is NetBSD5 and OpenSolaris. > The problem with opensolaris, last time I checked, was that it didn''t > support paravirt_ops linux guests, and didn''t support pvgrub. > For me, those two are dealbreakers. Especially the first. I don''t > want to be in the business of maintaining my customer''s kernels. They > are paying me for flexibility, and they are not paying enough for > handholding, so it''s essential that my stuff works in a standard manner > . > However, I imagine those things are being worked on (and OpenSolaris > may even have those features right now; it just didn''t a few months > ago when I was screwing with it.) > > Speaking of, has anyone figured out how to boot opensolaris as > a guest using PVGRUB? I have it working with PyGRUB, but I have > all my customers on PVGRUB. > > Personally, I''m getting pretty tired of dealing with 2.6.18, so > my next server will be built with NetBSD5. I had great success with > NetBSD 3/Xen2, but I haven''t used NetBSD5 outside of testing, so > we will see how it goes. > > >Hi ! Correct, Opensolaris 0609 (XEN 3.1) does not support Linux paravirt guests. However I tried build 122 and 123 (XEN 3.3.1) and now it works well. I installed Oracle Unbreakable Linux 5.3 for RAC testing purposes (two paravirt guests). The setup is running well even with shared disks for ASM, OCR and voting disks (while in 11gR2 everything is stored in ASM now) The big advantage with an OpenSolaris dom0 is the fact that you can use ZFS (especially ZFS Vols) for your domUs. For this reason OpenSolaris is the best choice for me. Regards, Marc