hello all, i have two simple questions about XEN... first of all, it needs some sort of specific server hardware or can i run it on a good pc, e.g. with quad processor and 8gigs of ram ? second, if i add for example, 3-4 sound cards (pci or pci-e) on a xen server, can 3 different hosts to use them ? i''m interested to move under a hypervisor 3 pc''s i use for a web radio application.. regards, george -- regards, Metron 6 (six) Metron6@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On 05/10/2011 19:01, Metron 6 (six) wrote:> hello all, > > i have two simple questions about XEN... > > first of all, it needs some sort of specific server hardware or can i > run it on a good pc, e.g. with quad processor and 8gigs of ram ? > second, if i add for example, 3-4 sound cards (pci or pci-e) on a xen > server, can 3 different hosts to use them ? > i''m interested to move under a hypervisor 3 pc''s i use for a web radio > application.. > > > regards, > > george > > >Yes, Xen works on just about anything that Linux will run on. Regarding PCI passthrough, in theory, yes. Ive had a little hit and miss with it myself. I''ve used passthrough to move several NICs with success, but had trouble with some DVB-T cards. Maybe a silly question, but why would a web radio need access to a hardware sound card? I thought they used digital media and the DJs don''t need to be on the server, they are also connected via network/internet. -- May the ping be with you .. _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Hi all, I am trying to implement a blktap driver which will intercept block data from DomU OS and perform encryption/decryption on the fly. Is this possible? Also, where can I get good documentation on the data structures used by blktap and how to install Xen from source on Debian Squeeze? Thank you all very much. -Jack _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
If you intend to run linux guests, you can run them in PV mode and share pci/pcie card like you want, provided you have open source drivers. if you run other OS or have binary drivers you have to run in HVM mode where all pci devices are supposed to be lumped together on intel platform, while pcie devices on intel and both pci and pcie devices on AMD can be given out independently. That''s the theory. In parctice I was unable to get onboard pcie usb3 controller to work in HVM guest or intel gpu in PV dom0. I recommend you read up on your target pci/pcie devices, perhaps someone tried this already. as far as specs go, it''s advisable to dedicate a core per guest plus a core for dom0. you can have more guests if they are idle of course. you could get by with little memory too, it really depends on what you are running. If you are going HVM route you''d need a pretty recent motherboard and processor though, as it need IOMMU. btw, if xen doesn''t work out for you, you can try other options, e.g. virtualbox has a pci passthrough module. d. On 5 October 2011 21:01, Metron 6 (six) <metron6@gmail.com> wrote:> hello all, > > i have two simple questions about XEN... > > first of all, it needs some sort of specific server hardware or can i > run it on a good pc, e.g. with quad processor and 8gigs of ram ? > second, if i add for example, 3-4 sound cards (pci or pci-e) on a xen > server, can 3 different hosts to use them ? > i''m interested to move under a hypervisor 3 pc''s i use for a web radio > application.. > > > regards, > > george > > > > -- > > regards, > Metron 6 (six) > > Metron6@gmail.com > > _______________________________________________ > Xen-users mailing list > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users >_______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Joseph Glanville
2011-Oct-06 01:02 UTC
[Xen-devel] Re: [Xen-users] block level intercept with blktap
Hi, Developing blktap2 drivers in userspace is very easy. You can find the source under tools/blktap2 in the Xen source tarball. I suggest starting with the README and taking a look at tools/blktap2/drivers/block_ram.c which is a simple ramdisk implementation. Blktap2 also allows the creation of "stacking" drivers which would probably be a good fit for an encryption driver as you could then use it with abitary backends. CC''d the xen-devel list if anyone wants to chime in? Just a note, take a look at the post to xen-devel about the tap-ctl utility being introduced, the documentation is yet to be updated to reflect it. Joseph. On 6 October 2011 08:01, <kuei.sun@utoronto.ca> wrote:> Hi all, > > I am trying to implement a blktap driver which will intercept block data > from DomU OS and perform encryption/decryption on the fly. Is this possible? > Also, where can I get good documentation on the data structures used by > blktap and how to install Xen from source on Debian Squeeze? Thank you all > very much. > > -Jack > > > ______________________________**_________________ > Xen-users mailing list > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com > http://lists.xensource.com/**xen-users<http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users> >-- * Founder | Director | VP Research Orion Virtualisation Solutions* | www.orionvm.com.au | Phone: 1300 56 99 52 | Mobile: 0428 754 846 _______________________________________________ Xen-devel mailing list Xen-devel@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel
thank you both... trial and error is the solution :) On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 12:53 AM, Dima Tisnek <dimaqq@gmail.com> wrote:> If you intend to run linux guests, you can run them in PV mode and > share pci/pcie card like you want, provided you have open source > drivers. > > if you run other OS or have binary drivers you have to run in HVM mode > where all pci devices are supposed to be lumped together on intel > platform, while pcie devices on intel and both pci and pcie devices on > AMD can be given out independently. > > That''s the theory. > > In parctice I was unable to get onboard pcie usb3 controller to work > in HVM guest or intel gpu in PV dom0. I recommend you read up on your > target pci/pcie devices, perhaps someone tried this already. > > as far as specs go, it''s advisable to dedicate a core per guest plus a > core for dom0. you can have more guests if they are idle of course. > you could get by with little memory too, it really depends on what you > are running. If you are going HVM route you''d need a pretty recent > motherboard and processor though, as it need IOMMU. > > btw, if xen doesn''t work out for you, you can try other options, e.g. > virtualbox has a pci passthrough module. > > d. > > On 5 October 2011 21:01, Metron 6 (six) <metron6@gmail.com> wrote: >> hello all, >> >> i have two simple questions about XEN... >> >> first of all, it needs some sort of specific server hardware or can i >> run it on a good pc, e.g. with quad processor and 8gigs of ram ? >> second, if i add for example, 3-4 sound cards (pci or pci-e) on a xen >> server, can 3 different hosts to use them ? >> i''m interested to move under a hypervisor 3 pc''s i use for a web radio >> application.. >> >> >> regards, >> >> george >> >> >> >> -- >> >> regards, >> Metron 6 (six) >> >> Metron6@gmail.com >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Xen-users mailing list >> Xen-users@lists.xensource.com >> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users >> >-- regards, Metron 6 (six) Metron6@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users