Pkg xen devel - Dec 2006 - Big machines support by Debian Xen

Hello people.

I'm going to maintain a setup of several "big-resource" machines
(>= 4 CPUs, >=8 Gb of ram), which should host large number of
"small"
systems in xen domains.

As far as I understand, using "big machines" is not currently possible
within debian xen packages, because there is no kernel with pae support to 
use in domain 0, which in turn forces to use non-pae supervisor, which 
makes most of system memory unavailable.

I'd like to ask what is debian xen team's current position on providing 
support for "big machines". Is debian xen team interested in such
support?

*) if no, please state this explicitly (should I read the reply in #390862 
as such a statement?); then people who need such support will have to live 
with this, and stop complaining ...

*) if yes, what is the reason of the current situation. May I help somehow 
to improve it?

Nikita
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On Sun, Dec 10, 2006 at 11:58:20PM +0300, Nikita V. Youshchenko
wrote:
> Hello people.
> 
> I'm going to maintain a setup of several "big-resource"
machines
> (>= 4 CPUs, >=8 Gb of ram), which should host large number of
"small"
> systems in xen domains.
> 
> As far as I understand, using "big machines" is not currently
possible
> within debian xen packages, because there is no kernel with pae support to 
> use in domain 0, which in turn forces to use non-pae supervisor, which 
> makes most of system memory unavailable.
> 
Sorry if this seems dumb, but why a 4+ CPU machine with 8+ GB RAM but
not 64-bit?  I can understand if you are dealing with already existing
machines, but for a new acquisition your requirements just scream out
for an amd64 setup.

Regards,

-Roberto

-- 
Roberto C. Sanchez
http://people.connexer.com/~roberto
http://www.connexer.com
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On Sun, Dec 10, 2006 at 11:58:20PM +0300, Nikita V. Youshchenko wrote:

Hi!
> As far as I understand, using "big machines" is not currently
possible
> within debian xen packages, because there is no kernel with pae support to 
> use in domain 0, which in turn forces to use non-pae supervisor, which 
> makes most of system memory unavailable.
> 
If what you're missing is a linux kernel compiled for pae that's a
kernel not a
pkg-xen issue... 
> I'd like to ask what is debian xen team's current position on
providing
> support for "big machines". Is debian xen team interested in such
support?
> 
We'd currently like to support it and we provide the pae hypervisor... The
missing link is in the kernel team... In the meantime you could use debian
xen's
packages and build your own kernels and maybe check with the kernel team about
why they are not provide...

Regards,

Guido