Hello Dexter,
On Nov 22, 2012, at 12:50 PM, Dexter Filmore <Dexter.Filmore@gmx.de>
wrote:
Hi all,
I''m planning a rig that has SuSE linux in Dom0 and Windows7 in a DomU
with
the
PCIe video card passed through to the Win7-U and an AMD system''s
onboard
video for the Linux system.
Couple xen-newbie questions: does my plan work in such that I intend to
have
the onboard video''s DVI and the video card (at present an NV GTX-460)
on
the
same monitor and switch between them? How will I direct the input devices,
i.e. how do I tell which VM is active and takes keyb/mouse input?
A fantastic thing, this is. Your *best* bet: pick up a DVI/USB KVM.
They''re under $80 now... I think. I have an IOGear unit myself, and
it
works like a charm.
While you *can* use scripts to trigger hot-plugging of devices and bounce
them between DomUs---which I admit is really cool to see in
action---it''s a
little kludgey, and depends heavily on drivers behaving correctly, which
doesn''t always happen. To save your sanity, just grab the KVM and be
done
with it, and take a moment to chuckle to yourself as you plug the device
into two separate outputs on one machine ;-)
For the software setup, follow the excellent guide that Casey linked in his
email. It''s very thorough, and is mostly identical for an AMD setup.
I''ll
get to the hardware below.
Do I understand correctly that shutting down the Xen system will suspend
the
U-VMs automatically?
Conventional suspend-to-disk behavior, like snapshotting or even ACPI
standby may not work properly... But don''t quote me on it.
The best behavior I could guarantee would be that, when the Dom0 goes to
perform a graceful shutdown, you should get an ACPI shutdown signal sent to
the DomU. The DomU, in turn, will shut off, and then Dom0 continues its
shutdown.
Is it acceptable to use the Dom0 SuSE for daily work (private use) or are
there resons against it and I should rather use another DomU for that?
A matter of preference. If you''ve got enough RAM, I''d suggest
keeping Dom0
as light as possible, as the nature of a type 1(?) hypervisor and PCI
passthrough does an amazing job of affording us that luxury! Naturally,
the more you abstract things, the more involved your set-up process is.
For what it''s worth, if this weren''t a system I was using for
work, Dom0
would be my primary Linux box.
Now hardware: targetting an AMD platform, what board/cpu combo has proven
to
work with Win7 in a DomU and PCIe passthrough in the range of quad-core or
better and a board/cpu combo that supports ECC RAM? (thinking about 16GB,
so
I''d go for unregistered modules, 4x4GB single ranked).
Regards
Dex
<snip>
I''m glad you asked! My build is AMD based, and I''m beyond
happy with it.
It''s just perfect. My focus is a little different: maximum
consolidation
ratio (e.g. 4-in-1). The hardware is still a solid recommendation, but you
can use a standard [7 slot] case, you can get a faster 8-core processor
now, and you can also opt for individual USB controller cards. They''re
$12
or so a piece. You can try your luck with onboard USB, but my efforts with
both the 990FX and 890FX chipsets didn''t turn out well when it came to
redirecting them at the PCI level. There should be more on that in my
previous reply.
See the email here, and follow the link in it to get the full parts list.
This link contains some errata to that list, so you will probably want to
read it before jumping to the next link:
http://lists.xen.org/archives/html/xen-users/2012-09/msg00273.html
Also, you can ignore the suggestion for ESXi. I''ve been told that the
issues I had when trying to get GPLPV to work against that hardware are
either resolved, or an indication that I was doing it wrong. Possibly
both. I haven''t gotten to rebuilding the machine on Xen yet, but my
priorities just haven''t had room to include that project just yet. :P
And finally, if you have any questions, don''t hesitate to ask!
I''ve been
meaning to put together a blog post or something to expound on the idea,
the purpose of the machine, and the pitfalls I had when tackling the
project... Sort of like Casey''s guide, but with the consolidation focus
rather than the dual-purpose system focus... With pictures and stuff ;)
Cheers,
Andrew Bobulsky
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