Xen users - Mar 2009 - Dell PowerEdge 2850 / Xen / Windows 2003 / Debian

Hi, recently I came across a deal on a bunch of Dell PowerEdge 2850 servers
and I was hoping to use them to run Debian with Xen to provided
virtualization support for Windows 2003 and other Debian installations.  I
was hoping to install 2 copies of Windows 2003 as well as 2 copies of Debian
all on top of the DOM0 Debian installation.

 

The servers have dual 3.2ghz CPU''s and include 16GB of ram with plenty
of
disk space.

 

Can I accomplish this or should I avoid the 2850''s and look for
something
else?

 

Here is CPU info for one of the 4 cores -

 

processor       : 0

vendor_id       : GenuineIntel

cpu family      : 15

model           : 4

model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 3.20GHz

stepping        : 1

cpu MHz         : 3192.394

cache size      : 1024 KB

physical id     : 0

siblings        : 2

core id         : 0

cpu cores       : 1

apicid          : 0

initial apicid  : 0

fdiv_bug        : no

hlt_bug         : no

f00f_bug        : no

coma_bug        : no

fpu             : yes

fpu_exception   : yes

cpuid level     : 5

wp              : yes

flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca
cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm
constant_tsc pebs bts pni monitor ds_cpl cid cx16 xtpr

bogomips        : 6390.01

clflush size    : 64

power management:

 

 

Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks:  Joseph Campisi

 



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On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 02:25:21PM -0400, Joseph Campisi III
wrote:
>    Hi, recently I came across a deal on a bunch of Dell PowerEdge 2850
>    servers and I was hoping to use them to run Debian with Xen to provided
>    virtualization support for Windows 2003 and other Debian
>    installations.  I was hoping to install 2 copies of Windows 2003 as
>    well as 2 copies of Debian all on top of the DOM0 Debian installation.
[snip]
> 
>    flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge
>    mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx
>    lm constant_tsc pebs bts pni monitor ds_cpl cid cx16 xtpr
I would skip over those servers and look for something that has the VT
instruction set if you want to use them to run Windows on Xen. You can
do paravirtualization with Debian, but you won''t be able to do the full
hardware virtualization with Windows. That is unless Xen supports
instruction rewriting now. I don''t believe that it does, but someone
will correct me if I am wrong. ;-)

Here are the flags for my processor with VT. Or, you can go with AMD. The
flag for it is smx. I believe.

Here are the flags for my CPU. See the vmx flag?

flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge
mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe
syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl pni
monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm ida

brian
-- 
Brian Lavender
http://www.brie.com/brian/

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Joseph Campisi III wrote:
> Here is CPU info for one of the 4 cores –
>
> flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge
> mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm
> constant_tsc pebs bts pni monitor ds_cpl cid cx16 xtpr
Hi,

Have you been in the BIOS to check if there is a virtualization option ?
Most of the time (and I don''t know why) this option is off, and then
the
flags wont show the VMX option...

Thomas

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The PowerEdge 2850s that I have do not support Intel VT technology,
which is required to run HVM (full virtualization) for Operating Systems
that do not support Paravirtualization - like windows.  Your CPU flags
do not include the "vmx" flag, which is what VT shows up as in the
cpuinfo output - you can check in the BIOS and see if there's an option
to enable Virtualization Technology, but I don't know that any of the
8th-generation PowerEdge servers support it.
 
-Nick
>>> On 2009/03/15 at 12:25, "Joseph Campisi III"
<jcampisi@realprodata.com> wrote:


Hi, recently I came across a deal on a bunch of Dell PowerEdge 2850
servers and I was hoping to use them to run Debian with Xen to provided
virtualization support for Windows 2003 and other Debian installations. 
I was hoping to install 2 copies of Windows 2003 as well as 2 copies of
Debian all on top of the DOM0 Debian installation.
 
The servers have dual 3.2ghz CPU*s and include 16GB of ram with plenty
of disk space.
 
Can I accomplish this or should I avoid the 2850*s and look for
something else?
 
Here is CPU info for one of the 4 cores *
 
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 15
model           : 4
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 3.20GHz
stepping        : 1
cpu MHz         : 3192.394
cache size      : 1024 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 1
apicid          : 0
initial apicid  : 0
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 5
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge
mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm
constant_tsc pebs bts pni monitor ds_cpl cid cx16 xtpr
bogomips        : 6390.01
clflush size    : 64
power management:
 
 
Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated!
 
Thanks:  Joseph Campisi
 


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