Does anyone have experience with the Xen that''s built in to RHEL5? Does it have most of the feature set of the open source version xen 3.04 or is it an older version? Has it proved to be stable? For a new Xen system would you recommend installing RHEL4 (or clones) and then downloading the xen rpms and tarballs from the Xen site, or picking RHEL5 and using the Xen that comes with that? Also, has anyone tried, under either of those modes, to have an x86_64 host OS and i686-based virtual clients? Are there any docs online of how to do that? Thanks Steve Timm -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Steven C. Timm, Ph.D (630) 840-8525 timm@fnal.gov http://home.fnal.gov/~timm/ Fermilab Computing Division, Scientific Computing Facilities, Grid Facilities Department, FermiGrid Services Group, Assistant Group Leader. _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Wed, Jun 06, 2007 at 03:51:58PM -0500, Steven Timm wrote:> > Does anyone have experience with the Xen that''s built in to RHEL5? > Does it have most of the feature set of the open source version xen 3.04 > or is it an older version? Has it proved to be stable?It is based on Xen 3.0.3 & for the set of features claimed to work in 3.0.3 it is very stable :-)> Also, has anyone tried, under either of those modes, > to have an x86_64 host OS and i686-based virtual clients?RHEL-5 does not support 32-on-64.> Are there any docs online of how to do that?You''ll require Xen 3.0.5 to do 32-on-64. Other than that, the process for booting a 32-bit guest is same as for a 64-bit guest. Dan. -- |=- Red Hat, Engineering, Emerging Technologies, Boston. +1 978 392 2496 -=| |=- Perl modules: http://search.cpan.org/~danberr/ -=| |=- Projects: http://freshmeat.net/~danielpb/ -=| |=- GnuPG: 7D3B9505 F3C9 553F A1DA 4AC2 5648 23C1 B3DF F742 7D3B 9505 -=| _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
> You''ll require Xen 3.0.5 to do 32-on-64. Other than that, the process for > booting a 32-bit guest is same as for a 64-bit guest. >When downloading Xen 3.1.0 tarballs, (=Xen 3.0.5?!) what is the difference between the 32-bit and the 32-bit PAE tarballs? Which one would I need for the clients if I were to do 32-bit clients on 64-bit host? Which of the 32 bit versions (32bit PAE or without PAE) is the one that''s in the RPM''s? I have used them before with 32 on 32 and they worked. Thanks Steve Timm -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Steven C. Timm, Ph.D (630) 840-8525 timm@fnal.gov http://home.fnal.gov/~timm/ Fermilab Computing Division, Scientific Computing Facilities, Grid Facilities Department, FermiGrid Services Group, Assistant Group Leader. _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Steven Timm wrote:> > Does anyone have experience with the Xen that''s built in to RHEL5? > Does it have most of the feature set of the open source version xen 3.04 > or is it an older version? Has it proved to be stable?Go look at and install CentOS 5.0 to find out for yourself, or look at the SRPM repositories for RHEL on a public mirror. It''s xen-3.0.3, with virt-manager and virt-install, and can instlal RHEL 4.5 DomU''s. But it''s well behind the leading edge of Xen development: RHEL 5.1 is supposed to have significant improvements. RHEL has a big problem that when they publish a specific release, they feel they are *STUCK* at that release for a long, long time. So even the new RHEL 5 was already 4-6 months behind the leading edge and can expect to stay that way until RHEL 6 comes out for all its core packages.> For a new Xen system would you recommend installing RHEL4 (or clones) > and then downloading the xen rpms and tarballs from the Xen site, > or picking RHEL5 and using the Xen that comes with that?Save the money: experiement with CentOS, which has the centosplus repository for updated software and turning on things like NTFS in the kernels.> Also, has anyone tried, under either of those modes, > to have an x86_64 host OS and i686-based virtual clients? > Are there any docs online of how to do that?It''s supposed to just work from the virt-manager installs in para-virtualization mode. I''ve not tried it. _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Daniel P. Berrange wrote:> On Wed, Jun 06, 2007 at 03:51:58PM -0500, Steven Timm wrote: > >> Does anyone have experience with the Xen that''s built in to RHEL5? >> Does it have most of the feature set of the open source version xen 3.04 >> or is it an older version? Has it proved to be stable? >> > > It is based on Xen 3.0.3 & for the set of features claimed to work in 3.0.3 > it is very stable :-) > > >> Also, has anyone tried, under either of those modes, >> to have an x86_64 host OS and i686-based virtual clients? >> > > RHEL-5 does not support 32-on-64. > > >> Are there any docs online of how to do that? >> > > You''ll require Xen 3.0.5 to do 32-on-64. Other than that, the process for > booting a 32-bit guest is same as for a 64-bit guest. >Ahh. If *that''s* the limit, which I don''t think it is, one may be able to use the xensource 3.1.0 kernel and update libvirt as necessary. _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Wednesday 06 June 2007, Steven Timm wrote:> > You''ll require Xen 3.0.5 to do 32-on-64. Other than that, the process for > > booting a 32-bit guest is same as for a 64-bit guest. > > When downloading Xen 3.1.0 tarballs, (=Xen 3.0.5?!) what is > the difference between the 32-bit and the 32-bit PAE tarballs? Which > one would I need for the clients if I were to do 32-bit clients on 64-bit > host?non-PAE can only address up to 4Gig of memory. PAE can address up to about 16gig, useful for large memory systems. A 32-bit PAE hypervisor only supports PAE paravirtualised guests (but it can run both PAE and non-PAE HVM guests if HVM is available). A 32-bit non-PAE XEn can only run non-PAE guests in paravirt mode, and can run only non-PAE guests in HVM mode. 32-on-64 requires PAE (this is because the pagetable format for PAE is very closely related to that used by 64-bit x86)> Which of the 32 bit versions (32bit PAE or without PAE) is the one > that''s in the RPM''s? I have used them before with 32 on 32 and they > worked.The RPMs tend to be PAE, but that''s just an educated guess. Cheers, Mark -- Dave: Just a question. What use is a unicyle with no seat? And no pedals! Mark: To answer a question with a question: What use is a skateboard? Dave: Skateboards have wheels. Mark: My wheel has a wheel! _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
I have just installed CentOS 5 on x86_64 VT-enabled platform (Xeon 5310). I have used its built-in Xen to install to guest domains: - Fully virtualized x86_64 FC6 from an ISO image - Para-virtualized CentOS 4.5 from an http repository I''ve not done enough testing yet to conclude whether it''s stable. I have a wierd problem with the network interfaces of the two guest domains: they cannot be set up neither by dhcp, nor statically, while the Dom0 eth0/1 work just fine. I am trying to troubleshoot the problem... On 6/6/07, Steven Timm <timm@fnal.gov> wrote:> > Does anyone have experience with the Xen that''s built in to RHEL5? > Does it have most of the feature set of the open source version xen 3.04 > or is it an older version? Has it proved to be stable? > > For a new Xen system would you recommend installing RHEL4 (or clones) > and then downloading the xen rpms and tarballs from the Xen site, > or picking RHEL5 and using the Xen that comes with that? > > Also, has anyone tried, under either of those modes, > to have an x86_64 host OS and i686-based virtual clients? > Are there any docs online of how to do that? > > Thanks > > Steve Timm > > -- > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > Steven C. Timm, Ph.D (630) 840-8525 > timm@fnal.gov http://home.fnal.gov/~timm/ > Fermilab Computing Division, Scientific Computing Facilities, > Grid Facilities Department, FermiGrid Services Group, Assistant Group > Leader. > > _______________________________________________ > 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
> > Does anyone have experience with the Xen that''s built in to RHEL5? > > Does it have most of the feature set of the open source version xen 3.04 > > or is it an older version? Has it proved to be stable?It''s based on Xen 3.0.3. Amongst other things this means that its HVM support is not quite so advanced (the specific thing that comes to mind is SMP HVM guest support is not quite there, but I''m sure there are other fixes to HVM and other code too in 3.0.4). I believe the RHEL 5.1 update is slated to include a newer Xen, possibly 3.1.> > For a new Xen system would you recommend installing RHEL4 (or clones) > > and then downloading the xen rpms and tarballs from the Xen site, > > or picking RHEL5 and using the Xen that comes with that?I''m running my test machines with CentOS 4 and a xen-unstable compiled from source. Obviously you wouldn''twant to do that for production machines, but it works well for me. RHEL5 has the advantage of being nicely integrated into the system. There''s SELinux support for Xen (if you organise your VMs the way it expects, that is!), there''s the nice virt-manager GUI, etc. You could always try this out using CentOS 5.> > Also, has anyone tried, under either of those modes, > > to have an x86_64 host OS and i686-based virtual clients? > > Are there any docs online of how to do that?ON a 64-bit Xen you can run 64-bit, 32-bit/PAE and 32-bit nonPAE guests under HVM mode. On Xen 3.1 you can also run both 64-bit and 32-bit/PAE guests in PV mode. Cheers, Mark> > Thanks > > > > Steve Timm > > > > -- > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Steven C. Timm, Ph.D (630) 840-8525 > > timm@fnal.gov http://home.fnal.gov/~timm/ > > Fermilab Computing Division, Scientific Computing Facilities, > > Grid Facilities Department, FermiGrid Services Group, Assistant Group > > Leader. > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Xen-users mailing list > > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com > > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users-- Dave: Just a question. What use is a unicyle with no seat? And no pedals! Mark: To answer a question with a question: What use is a skateboard? Dave: Skateboards have wheels. Mark: My wheel has a wheel! _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Mark Williamson wrote:>>> Does anyone have experience with the Xen that''s built in to RHEL5? >>> Does it have most of the feature set of the open source version xen 3.04 >>> or is it an older version? Has it proved to be stable? >>> > > It''s based on Xen 3.0.3. Amongst other things this means that its HVM support > is not quite so advanced (the specific thing that comes to mind is SMP HVM > guest support is not quite there, but I''m sure there are other fixes to HVM > and other code too in 3.0.4). > > I believe the RHEL 5.1 update is slated to include a newer Xen, possibly 3.1. >I don''t see how it could be 3.. Fedora Core 7 is only up to 3.0.4. And at the Xen presentation by RedHat I visited last month, they were very clear that stability and consistency of software is a big, big, big deal in the RHEL world., and I don''t think they''ve had enough time to really test the released 3.1 code. Mind you, I''ve worked with the XenSource RPM''s for a while now and am pleased with them, but wish they''d fold in the ''run grubby after kernel installation'' because grubby now works for Xen kernels, and actually include the documentation in the RPM''s. (Compiling the docs from the SRPKM from XenSource is..... non-trivial.)>>> For a new Xen system would you recommend installing RHEL4 (or clones) >>> and then downloading the xen rpms and tarballs from the Xen site, >>> or picking RHEL5 and using the Xen that comes with that? >>> > > I''m running my test machines with CentOS 4 and a xen-unstable compiled from > source. Obviously you wouldn''twant to do that for production machines, but > it works well for me. >I use CentOS 4.5 with the Xensource 3.1.0 kernel, which works well.> RHEL5 has the advantage of being nicely integrated into the system. There''s > SELinux support for Xen (if you organise your VMs the way it expects, that > is!), there''s the nice virt-manager GUI, etc. > > You could always try this out using CentOS 5. > >Yeah, 5.0 works pretty well, as does RHEL 5.0 _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Fri, Jun 08, 2007 at 09:00:48AM +0100, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:> Mark Williamson wrote: > >>>Does anyone have experience with the Xen that''s built in to RHEL5? > >>>Does it have most of the feature set of the open source version xen 3.04 > >>>or is it an older version? Has it proved to be stable? > >>> > > > >It''s based on Xen 3.0.3. Amongst other things this means that its HVM > >support is not quite so advanced (the specific thing that comes to mind is > >SMP HVM guest support is not quite there, but I''m sure there are other > >fixes to HVM and other code too in 3.0.4). > > > >I believe the RHEL 5.1 update is slated to include a newer Xen, possibly > >3.1. > > > I don''t see how it could be 3.. Fedora Core 7 is only up to 3.0.4. And > at the Xen presentation by RedHat I visited last month, they were very > clear that stability and consistency of software is a big, big, big deal > in the RHEL world., and I don''t think they''ve had enough time to really > test the released 3.1 code.Fedora 7 (no Core in the name anymore) is using 3.1.0 for hypervisor and userspace. The Fedora 7 kernel is temporarily on 3.0.4 until we finish the kernel rebase to 3.1.0 + 2.6.21 As you say, RHEL is all about stability so upgrading software versions, particularly if end user facing commands / tools change, is not really an option. Dan. -- |=- Red Hat, Engineering, Emerging Technologies, Boston. +1 978 392 2496 -=| |=- Perl modules: http://search.cpan.org/~danberr/ -=| |=- Projects: http://freshmeat.net/~danielpb/ -=| |=- GnuPG: 7D3B9505 F3C9 553F A1DA 4AC2 5648 23C1 B3DF F742 7D3B 9505 -=| _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
> > I believe the RHEL 5.1 update is slated to include a newer Xen, possibly > > 3.1. > > I don''t see how it could be 3.. Fedora Core 7 is only up to 3.0.4. And > at the Xen presentation by RedHat I visited last month, they were very > clear that stability and consistency of software is a big, big, big deal > in the RHEL world., and I don''t think they''ve had enough time to really > test the released 3.1 code.When is 5.1 due to be released? The 5.x updates to RHEL are fairly significant - service packs, rather than simple bug fixes..> > I''m running my test machines with CentOS 4 and a xen-unstable compiled > > from source. Obviously you wouldn''twant to do that for production > > machines, but it works well for me. > > I use CentOS 4.5 with the Xensource 3.1.0 kernel, which works well.I need to upgrade :-) Cheers, Mark -- Dave: Just a question. What use is a unicyle with no seat? And no pedals! Mark: To answer a question with a question: What use is a skateboard? Dave: Skateboards have wheels. Mark: My wheel has a wheel! _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Mark Williamson wrote:>>> I believe the RHEL 5.1 update is slated to include a newer Xen, possibly >>> 3.1. >>> >> I don''t see how it could be 3.. Fedora Core 7 is only up to 3.0.4. And >> at the Xen presentation by RedHat I visited last month, they were very >> clear that stability and consistency of software is a big, big, big deal >> in the RHEL world., and I don''t think they''ve had enough time to really >> test the released 3.1 code. >> > > When is 5.1 due to be released? The 5.x updates to RHEL are fairly > significant - service packs, rather than simple bug fixes.. > > >>> I''m running my test machines with CentOS 4 and a xen-unstable compiled >>> from source. Obviously you wouldn''twant to do that for production >>> machines, but it works well for me. >>> >> I use CentOS 4.5 with the Xensource 3.1.0 kernel, which works well. >> > > I need to upgrade :-) >Heh. The switch to CentOS 4.5/RHEL 4.5 is significant. Also, if you need non-RHEL versions of things, I really like the centosplus repository for far more recent but compatible versions of PHP, MySQL, and RedHat based kernels with NTFS turned on. _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users