Xen devel - May 2004 - Xen 1.3/2.0 and stability. what i''m goign to do with it.....

I have been running Xen 1.3 on a machine for over 2 months now. No
instabilities, no glitches, nothing (cept for a minor NFS server timeout once in
a while, I think it''s the server, not the box).

Because of this I am doing a broader testing of xen in a cluster setup. I will
be working on a set of perl (yes, I know python exists, but I don''t
know how to code python. 8-P) scripts and apps that will allow me to manage this
cluster of xen boxes and their images. The purpose of the scripts is to monitor,
start, stop, restart, etc xenolinux (and others like BSD/windows). In addition
it will be used to do the automatic provisioning of new xenolinux instances
after they are sold from the terrabox website.

For now i''ll be selling mini dev environments for people that still
(god only knows why) code and run MUDs. :)  Later I want to expand it to be a
"scale as you need it" hosting setup. I''d like to be able to
increase the maximum ammt of ram realtime. I know that xen can (in theory, not
tried yet) do cpu slice limiting. And i''ve also seen indications that
iSCSI is workable.

Anyways, this would be a test implementation of what i''ll (TIC) call
"grid hosting" *ducks*.

If anyone is interested in working on this, please let me know. I''d
appreciate any input and/or advice. :)

Brian

p.s. ok, I admit it, I still play in muds once in a while... :)

p.p.s. I have extensive cluster administration and high availability experience,
so i''m looking mostly for someone or more than just one, that has
worked with clustering on linux before.

p.p.p.s. umm, no bad jokes about the subject line of this email. ;)



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Due to the plethora of "in-30-days" and online learning sites, what
url would you reccomend for learning python quickly?

I can make out the general semantics, so it''d be mostly a crash course
for someone that is already used to programing in general.

Thanks!

Brian Wolfe
TerraBox.com Inc


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Thanks!.

On Sat, 29 May 2004 08:52:40 +0100 Ian Pratt <Ian.Pratt@cl.cam.ac.uk>
said...

> I have been running Xen 1.3 on a machine for over 2 months now. No
instabilities, no glitches, nothing (cept for a minor NFS server timeout once in
a while, I think it''s the server, not the box).
Thats good to hear.
 
> Because of this I am doing a broader testing of xen in a cluster setup. I
will be working on a set of perl (yes, I know python exists, but I
don''t know how to code python. 8-P) scripts and apps that will allow me
to manage this cluster of xen boxes and their images. The purpose of the scripts
is to monitor, start, stop, restart, etc xenolinux (and others like
BSD/windows). In addition it will be used to do the automatic provisioning of
new xenolinux instances after they are sold from the terrabox website.
Having these kinds of tools would be very useful. 

I''d really recommend that you have a play with python -- its very
quick to learn and you''ll find that the scripts are _far_ more
maintainable. It''ll be easier for other people to collaborate.
> For now i''ll be selling mini dev environments for people that
still (god only knows why) code and run MUDs. :)  Later I want to expand it to
be a "scale as you need it" hosting setup. I''d like to be
able to increase the maximum ammt of ram realtime. I know that xen can (in
theory, not tried yet) do cpu slice limiting. And i''ve also seen
indications that iSCSI is workable.
I''ve found iSCSI to work really well. I''ve been using the
Cisco
initiator code with an initrd to mount the domain''s root file system
over iSCSI. I''ve been using a NetApp F840 to provide the iSCSI LUNs.

As regards CPU slice limiting, I''ve observed strange scheduling
behaviour from both the BVT and Atropos schedulers over the last
week, so I think we''ll have to bug hunting session...


Ian

> I have been running Xen 1.3 on a machine for over 2 months now. No
instabilities, no glitches, nothing (cept for a minor NFS server timeout once in
a while, I think it''s the server, not the box).
Thats good to hear.
 
> Because of this I am doing a broader testing of xen in a cluster setup. I
will be working on a set of perl (yes, I know python exists, but I
don''t know how to code python. 8-P) scripts and apps that will allow me
to manage this cluster of xen boxes and their images. The purpose of the scripts
is to monitor, start, stop, restart, etc xenolinux (and others like
BSD/windows). In addition it will be used to do the automatic provisioning of
new xenolinux instances after they are sold from the terrabox website.
Having these kinds of tools would be very useful. 

I''d really recommend that you have a play with python -- its very
quick to learn and you''ll find that the scripts are _far_ more
maintainable. It''ll be easier for other people to collaborate.
> For now i''ll be selling mini dev environments for people that
still (god only knows why) code and run MUDs. :)  Later I want to expand it to
be a "scale as you need it" hosting setup. I''d like to be
able to increase the maximum ammt of ram realtime. I know that xen can (in
theory, not tried yet) do cpu slice limiting. And i''ve also seen
indications that iSCSI is workable.
I''ve found iSCSI to work really well. I''ve been using the
Cisco
initiator code with an initrd to mount the domain''s root file system
over iSCSI. I''ve been using a NetApp F840 to provide the iSCSI LUNs.

As regards CPU slice limiting, I''ve observed strange scheduling
behaviour from both the BVT and Atropos schedulers over the last
week, so I think we''ll have to bug hunting session...


Ian


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> Due to the plethora of "in-30-days" and online learning sites,
what url would you reccomend for learning python quickly?
> 
> I can make out the general semantics, so it''d be mostly a crash
course for someone that is already used to programing in general.
The main python.org site has some good docs, both online and in pdf.

http://python.org/2.3.4/

There''s a good tutorial, along with the standard library
reference. I find I often have the library reference up in a
web browser window as the range of available modules is superb
and it''s always worth searching to see if there''s something
off
the shelf you can use.  There''s loads of 3rd party modules for
niche stuff too.

We try to have the python used in the Xen project compliant with
the python 2.2 spec, as this is what is shipped with RH9. There''s
some nice new features in the 2.3 release, but nothing we can''t
live without.

As always, the best way to learn is just to look at someone
else''s code. I wouldn''t particularly recommend looking at
ours!

Ian


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