Xen users - May 2008 - Best distro with out of the box xen support?

All,
I just got my shiney new server with 8G of memory and want to build a
quick Dom0 base to build on.  Which distro has the best xen support?
(I don''t want to create a distro war, just asking for a few
suggestions ;-)

Thanks, marshall

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On Friday 09 May 2008 17:29, rabbtux rabbtux wrote:
> All,
> I just got my shiney new server with 8G of memory and want to build a
> quick Dom0 base to build on.  Which distro has the best xen support?
> (I don''t want to create a distro war, just asking for a few
> suggestions ;-)
>
> Thanks, marshall
>
Hi,
I''d defenitely use Debian, and I do ;-)
Jan

-- 
Jan Behrend
Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie
Abteilung für Infrarot-Interferometrie  Tel:   (+49) 228 525 319        
Auf dem Hügel 69                        Fax:   (+49) 228 525 411
D-53121 Bonn (Germany)                  jbehrend@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
                                        http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de

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Hi,

If you search the Xen mailing list, you''ll see that there was recently
(as
in, a few weeks ago) a large thread on this very topic.  I would suggest
reading that thread.

On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 11:43 AM, Jan Behrend <jbehrend@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de>
wrote:
> On Friday 09 May 2008 17:29, rabbtux rabbtux wrote:
> > All,
> > I just got my shiney new server with 8G of memory and want to build a
> > quick Dom0 base to build on.  Which distro has the best xen support?
> > (I don''t want to create a distro war, just asking for a few
> > suggestions ;-)
> >
> > Thanks, marshall
> >
> Hi,
> I''d defenitely use Debian, and I do ;-)
> Jan
>
> --
> Jan Behrend
> Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie
> Abteilung für Infrarot-Interferometrie  Tel:   (+49) 228 525 319
> Auf dem Hügel 69                        Fax:   (+49) 228 525 411
> D-53121 Bonn (Germany)                  jbehrend@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
>                                        http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
>
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-users mailing list
> Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
>

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Brian Stempin wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> If you search the Xen mailing list, you''ll see that there was
recently
> (as in, a few weeks ago) a large thread on this very topic.  I would 
> suggest reading that thread.
I''m guessing that you mean the "Most stable Xen distro?"
thread from Apr
7th or so?

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Centos 5.0 - 64 bits with xen 3.2 rebuilt from source.



2008/5/9 rabbtux rabbtux <rabbtux@gmail.com>:
> All,
>  I just got my shiney new server with 8G of memory and want to build a
>  quick Dom0 base to build on.  Which distro has the best xen support?
>  (I don''t want to create a distro war, just asking for a few
>  suggestions ;-)
>
>  Thanks, marshall
>
>  _______________________________________________
>  Xen-users mailing list
>  Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
>  http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
>
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Thomas Harold wrote:
> Brian Stempin wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> If you search the Xen mailing list, you''ll see that there was 
>> recently (as in, a few weeks ago) a large thread on this very topic.  
>> I would suggest reading that thread.
>
> I''m guessing that you mean the "Most stable Xen distro?"
thread from
> Apr 7th or so?
>
Gee, I''m reading this differently - as "which linux or bsd
distribution
has the best out-of-the-box xen support."

I''m a long-standing Debian user, but as I look at migrating a couple of
systems from Sarge to Etch, I''d like to add Xen to my mix, and I have 
not been particularly happy with Debian support for Xen (or is that Xen 
support for Debian).

I''ve started looking at the BSD varients and OpenSolaris (would really 
like to find something that supports  both Xen and ZFS - there doesn''t 
seem to be a great overlap yet).

So.. I''d also like to hear comments on which Unix distro best supports 
Xen out-of-the-box.

Miles

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Miles Fidelman a écrit :
> Thomas Harold wrote:
>> Brian Stempin wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> If you search the Xen mailing list, you''ll see that there
was
>>> recently (as in, a few weeks ago) a large thread on this very 
>>> topic.  I would suggest reading that thread.
>>
>> I''m guessing that you mean the "Most stable Xen
distro?" thread from
>> Apr 7th or so?
>>
> Gee, I''m reading this differently - as "which linux or bsd 
> distribution has the best out-of-the-box xen support."
>
> I''m a long-standing Debian user, but as I look at migrating a
couple
> of systems from Sarge to Etch, I''d like to add Xen to my mix, and
I
> have not been particularly happy with Debian support for Xen (or is 
> that Xen support for Debian).
>
> I''ve started looking at the BSD varients and OpenSolaris (would
really
> like to find something that supports  both Xen and ZFS - there
doesn''t
> seem to be a great overlap yet).
>
> So.. I''d also like to hear comments on which Unix distro best
supports
> Xen out-of-the-box.
>
> Miles
You should take a look at Fedora''s release notes on virtualisation :
 * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Fedora8VirtQuickStart : Fedora 
Core 8 uses Xen 3.1
 * tomorrow Fedora Core 9 will be released and includes Xen 3.2 : see 
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f9preview/en_US/sn-Virtualization.html
and http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/packageinfo?packageID=7

I think about Fedora as the platform where Xen is the most well 
integrated (think about libvirt : a virtualization API which supports 
Xen fully and will continue to do so. See 
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2007-November/msg00106.html).
Of course CentOS is a good choice too because it''s a RedHat clone,
which
is itself built upon the work on Fedora.

-- 
Maxim Doucet - www.alamaison.fr
sys admin @ la maison


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On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 8:15 AM, Marco Strullato
<marco.strullato@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Centos 5.0 - 64 bits with xen 3.2 rebuilt from source.
>
>
Second that.. It has been pretty stable so far.


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>
> You should take a look at Fedora''s release notes on virtualisation
:
> * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Fedora8VirtQuickStart : Fedora Core 8
> uses Xen 3.1
> * tomorrow Fedora Core 9 will be released and includes Xen 3.2 : see
>
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f9preview/en_US/sn-Virtualization.htmland
> http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/packageinfo?packageID=7
>
Be careful here. Fedora 9 is not going to have a Dom0 kernel according to:
http://www.nabble.com/Plans-for-paravirt_ops-kernel-xen-td15876181.html

There will be an updated domU kernel for Fedora 9 though.


As for best out of box distro, I have been testing Ubuntu 8.04 with the
fixed
Linux kernel packages from
http://downloads.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_8.04_server_xen_from_repositories/

I have been quite impressed at how well things work "out of the box",
I can
send a HOWTO with some
potential tricky points if people are interested. I will post it online
somewhere once I have time
to make it more polished and do some more testing.

Cheers,
Todd


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FWIW... Gentoo has provided a fine dom0 platform for me, and has had
3.2.1 available since at least early last week.

I''ve had troubles, but all due to my own inexperience with Xen, and the
problems I have had weren''t dom0-related, they had more to do with
finding configs for particular domU systems that match the current bits.



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Michael Jinks wrote:
> FWIW... Gentoo has provided a fine dom0 platform for me, and has had
> 3.2.1 available since at least early last week.
>
>   
I used Gentoo once. It''s fun, and provides a good environment to learn 
in-depth information on how Linux works. I even used it on several 
production servers. Had to give up eventually though.
It''s simply not feasible (in my case back then) to recompile numerous 
packages on many servers just because I upgraded mysql.

Since then I''m pretty much a RHEL/CentOS-64bit fan, with most servers 
running RH''s version of Xen, and several running xen 3.2 rebuilt from 
source.

Regards,

Fajar


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On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 11:44:43AM +0700, Fajar A. Nugraha
wrote:
> Michael Jinks wrote:
> >FWIW... Gentoo has provided a fine dom0 platform for me, and has had
> >3.2.1 available since at least early last week.
> 
> I used Gentoo once. It''s fun, and provides a good environment to
learn
> in-depth information on how Linux works. I even used it on several 
> production servers. Had to give up eventually though.
> It''s simply not feasible (in my case back then) to recompile
numerous
> packages on many servers just because I upgraded mysql.
Drifting a bit off-topic, but I don''t do that either.  We compile new
packages once per architecture, store them on a file server, and push
out to machines using our config manager.  Portage''s support for binary
packages isn''t mentioned very often but it''s worked really
well for us.

Best,
--Michael

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Michael Jinks wrote:
> FWIW... Gentoo has provided a fine dom0 platform for me, and has had
> 3.2.1 available since at least early last week.
We''ve been using Gentoo as a Dom0 (and DomU) for quite a while as well 
(Xen 3.0).  Runs well and I haven''t had to deal with it in many moons.

(But we''re going to migrate our Xen boxes over to CentOS within the
next
6-18 months.  Which makes it easier for us to eventually move to the 
paid version of RHEL for the really important servers.)

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Michael Jinks wrote:
> On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 11:44:43AM +0700, Fajar A. Nugraha wrote:
 >
> Drifting a bit off-topic, but I don''t do that either.  We compile
new
> packages once per architecture, store them on a file server, and push
> out to machines using our config manager.  Portage''s support for
binary
> packages isn''t mentioned very often but it''s worked
really well for us.
We used Gentoo as our primary flavor of Linux on servers for about 2-3 
years.  But while Gentoo is great for figuring things out and rolling 
out highly customized environments, I got tired of trying to keep up.

So we finally swallowed our pride of being able to roll our own unique 
environment and started using CentOS 5.  And as much as "Linux is 
Linux", it''s a lot easier to call up a support company and get
help with
a corporate-targeted distro like RedHat / CentOS then a DIY distro like 
Gentoo.  Gentoo was great for testing the waters.

I admire the Gentoo community.  They''re extremely helpful and 
knowledgeable.  But I just didn''t feel like there was a good focus on 
stability from the people maintaining portage packages.  So in the 
interest of getting things done and reducing our work load, we switched 
to a distro with a lot more commercial backing.

Plus, like the old saying "you can''t get fired for buying
IBM", it''s a
lot easier to defend using CentOS / RedHat in a corporate environment. 
They have enough visibility in the corporate sector that it''s easy to 
point at other large companies who are running on top of RHEL.  Which 
keeps the C-level executives off of my back about platform choices.

Which, of course, is *way* off-topic...

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