Re: [Xen-users] Why HVM?

Felix Kuperjans
Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:51:35 -0000

I thought there was an pvfb frontent, too, but I''ve never actually used
it.

For Linux consoles, virtual keyboard / mouse (e.g. for watching kernel
messages) is not necessary because the XEN hypervisor console offers all
capabilities of usual framebuffers, too. In addition, although quite
common nowadays, desktops should not be part of a server system,
web-based or remote administration GUIs are usually less resource
consuming (on the server), provide more secure access and are easier to
access (in case of web administration GUIs).
If someone really wants a desktop, it would be much better on Linux not
to install a full X server with input and video drivers, but instead
using a VNC server which usually is more lightweight (You would access
your virtual desktop with VNC anyway, it''s just the question whether
Dom0 or DomU is providing the VNC service).

Felix

Am 27.08.2010 12:45, schrieb Jonathan Tripathy:
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com on behalf of James Harper
> *Sent:* Fri 27/08/2010 11:43
> *To:* Felix Kuperjans; xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> *Subject:* RE: [Xen-users] Why HVM?
>
> > Hi Jonathan,
> >
> > The only big advantage is that customers can install operating systems
> that do
> > not support pv operation (e.g. Windows). Some small advantages like
> using own
> > GRUB or kernels can be achieved in pv environment, too (pvgrub,
> pygrub), but
> > those hosters probably don''t enable that for pv VPS.
> > Another little point is that not all HVM features are available for pv
> guests,
> > especially with pv_ops guest and host kernels (for example: USB
> passthrough,
> > PCI / VGA passthrough; the first two not yet with pv_ops kernels, VGA
> > passthrough is always only available for HVMs). But as long as you
> don''t want
> > to offer physical hardware to your clients, this doesn''t
matter for
> VPS
> > hosting.
> >
> > Probably I missed an important point, but AFAIK there is no advantage
> of
> > having a Linux server system in a HVM instead of a PV VM.
> >
>
> How good is VNC access under PV these days? With HVM you get a virtual
> keyboard, video, and mouse which can get you out of trouble if you do
> something dumb and lose network access.
>
> James
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Hi James,
>
> I just use xm console to get access to my linux shell without network
> access. VNC (for desktop PV environments) works fine if you install a
> VNC server (however this is network based)
>
> Cheers
>
>
>
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