Hello folks. Sorry this is such a general question... I''m planning on consolidating my home machines/laptop using Xen and would like to know if there are any potential showstoppers in my scheme. Any general advice would be appreciated. Currently I have some server-like machines (dns, imap etc) a workstation and a laptop. Two people use X/KDE on the workstation. One linux-savvy (Me), one not linux-savvy (NotMe). There are two user accounts on the workstation and we run two X servers so we can both be logged in at once. But if we both need to use a computer at the same time someone gets bumped off to the laptop. Some stuff is available via NFS, but other stuff I have to use rsync to copy back and forward to the laptop. The laptop also gets used disconnected, ie on the way into work or cruising on my 450'' launch on the harbour. I have to make sure I rsync up properly so I''ve got all I need. The scheme: Workstation (AMD Phenom/4GB RAM, has svm): RAID 1 the disks, ''boot'' and ''other'' partitions LVM the ''other'' partition XEN minimalist dom0 XEN 1 or more domUs for imap,www,dns,etc and coda XEN a linux domU for Me XEN a WinXP domU for Me XEN a linux domU for NotMe XEN a WinXP domU for NotMe Laptop (Intel Core2Duo/4GB RAM, has vmx): partition the single disk into ''boot'' and ''other'' partitions LUKS the ''other'' partition LVM the decrypted ''other'' partition XEN minimalist dom0 No LUKS on the workstation because it needs to boot the server domUs unattended after power failure. Currently the laptop supports hibernating to disk, I don''t believe tuxonice works with xen so we lose that capability. Now when necessary a domU can be migrated between workstation and laptop. Much of the stuff that had to be rsync''d is now within the domU vm. Some stuff needs to be shared between Me and NotMe, eg music library. This either goes into the nfs or coda server depending on need for disconnected operation and file size, ie 2GB+ media files. Some applications don''t like working over nfs, eg digikam/sqllite for NotMe''s photos. Coda may allow this without workarounds. Concurrent access is probably less likely using domUs compared to habitually logging into both laptop and workstation. Outstanding Questions: - User experience: NotMe can probably handle logging into dom0 at a VT and executing runLinuxHere/runWinXPHere/migrateLinuxToLaptop etc, but is there a more user friendly way to do it? If I''ve left my domU running how does NotMe get to dom0 to launch a domU? I''d like to avoid X on dom0 if possible. Also, what are the security implications of standard users logging into dom0? - Hardware passthrough: once in a blue moon I play some games, hence the WinXP for Me. I think reserving the gfx card for my domU makes it permanently unavailable to all other domains, or is it only reserved when my domU is using it (ie could NotMe could shut down my WinXP and start her own domU)? - Hardware passthrough: the workstation has a DVD burner. Can it be used by all domUs? Or must it be reserved? It''s the only device on the ide bus so reserving the whole bus may work. If it needs to be reserved can it be hot-unplugged from one domU and hot-plugged into another so it''s (more or less) available to all domUs? - Migration: the physical displays for the workstation and the laptop have different resolutions. Can a migrated domU adjust to use the native resolution? In fact all the hardware is different, is that going to be ok? - Nested virtualisation: currently I''ve set up VMWare on both the laptop and workstation for when NotMe has those "I can''t do it without Windows" moments. She''s used to using it now. If I can''t set up a suitably user-friendly way for her with Xen can I continue providing WinXP to her via VMWare running within her linux domU? If you''ve read this far thank you very much for you patience! :) P _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users