RE: [Xen-users] Why HVM?

James Harper
Fri, 27 Aug 2010 10:43:01 -0000

> 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