Hi all, I need to set up three hosts as Xen dom0. I''m quite familiar with Debian-type distributions, i.e. Debian and Ubuntu. I''m wondering which distro is better suited for a dom0 system. In particular, I haven''t been able to find Xen 4.2 packages for neither Ubuntu Precise nor Debian. It would be nice to have XCP working, but I noticed that the Xen wiki recommends switching to Debian SID. However, I''m quite reluctant to run an unstable distro on a production machine. Summary of my questions: * Is there a way to get Xen 4.2 in either Ubuntu or Debian (not-unstable) without compiling from source? * Which distro has better Xen support *in the repository*? * Is there a way to get XCP working in either Ubuntu or Debian (not-unstable)? * Are the improvements from 4.1 to 4.2 good enough to make the trouble of self-compiling (in case there are no packages) worthwhile? Thanks for your insight! Cheers, Andreas.
Am 04.12.2012 16:17, schrieb Andreas Hilboll:> Hi all, > > I need to set up three hosts as Xen dom0. I''m quite familiar with > Debian-type distributions, i.e. Debian and Ubuntu. I''m wondering which > distro is better suited for a dom0 system. In particular, I haven''t been > able to find Xen 4.2 packages for neither Ubuntu Precise nor Debian. > It would be nice to have XCP working, but I noticed that the Xen wiki > recommends switching to Debian SID. However, I''m quite reluctant to run > an unstable distro on a production machine. > > Summary of my questions: > > * Is there a way to get Xen 4.2 in either Ubuntu or Debian > (not-unstable) without compiling from source? > * Which distro has better Xen support *in the repository*? > * Is there a way to get XCP working in either Ubuntu or Debian > (not-unstable)? > * Are the improvements from 4.1 to 4.2 good enough to make the trouble > of self-compiling (in case there are no packages) worthwhile? > > Thanks for your insight! > Cheers, Andreas. > > _______________________________________________ > Xen-users mailing list > Xen-users@lists.xen.org > http://lists.xen.org/xen-usersHello, I would take Debian Squeeze. At the end it is a question of which you like more. The compilation of Xen 4.2 is very simple and discribed in the Wiki. You can do this in a chroot to prevent installing all needed packages in the production system itself. The deb make target is very useful this will create a deb package of the Xen distribution so you can simple install and uninstall the core components very easy, you just will need to install a few additional libs over apt/dpkg like libjpeg because they are needed for the QEmu Backend but not a dependency of the created deb package. Make sure that you made the in the wiki mentioned configfix that everything is installed on the correct place (--install-layout=deb) For nativ Dom0 support in the kernel which is not given in the normal squeeze Repos (2.6.32 kernel) you can use 3.2.0 from the backports repo (http://backports.debian.org). Best Regards
On Tue, 2012-12-04 at 15:49 +0000, Lukas Laukamp wrote:> Am 04.12.2012 16:17, schrieb Andreas Hilboll: > > Hi all, > > > > I need to set up three hosts as Xen dom0. I''m quite familiar with > > Debian-type distributions, i.e. Debian and Ubuntu. I''m wondering which > > distro is better suited for a dom0 system. In particular, I haven''t been > > able to find Xen 4.2 packages for neither Ubuntu Precise nor Debian. > > It would be nice to have XCP working, but I noticed that the Xen wiki > > recommends switching to Debian SID. However, I''m quite reluctant to run > > an unstable distro on a production machine.This info might be out of date -- AIUI Wheezy (aka testing) now has everything needed for XCP. Are you interested only in XCP or are you more interested in regular Xen? The answer will make a big difference to the advice you receive.> > Summary of my questions: > > > > * Is there a way to get Xen 4.2 in either Ubuntu or Debian > > (not-unstable) without compiling from source? > > * Which distro has better Xen support *in the repository*?Ubuntu mostly just consumes Xen from Debian, so I think they are much the same.> > * Is there a way to get XCP working in either Ubuntu or Debian > > (not-unstable)? > > * Are the improvements from 4.1 to 4.2 good enough to make the trouble > > of self-compiling (in case there are no packages) worthwhile?Installing yourself from source isn''t hard (if you just want Xen, see below re XCP) but in general if you don''t have any specific reason to do otherwise I would recommend sticking with your distro packages. Doing this will naturally avoid all the pit falls which newcomers trip over. Even if you eventually want to build from source it is easier to use the packages to familiarise yourself first and then come back to building stuff yourself if and when you find you need to. If you are using XCP then I would strongly recommend to use the packaged stuff, rebuilding the whole stack from the ground up is likely to take you a while.> > For nativ Dom0 support in the kernel which is not given in the normal > squeeze Repos (2.6.32 kernel)Squeeze has a kernel flavour with Xen support, it is the one with -xen in the name.
Hi, Not really an expert, all i can say was that i installed a Xen dom0 from stable Debian a few months ago, no frills, all through the Debian installer, with async RAID+LVM. It was mostly an experiment, i''''l redo it sometime "soon" (hopefully with better emphasis on HVMs). Unless you have specific needs, i''d recommend a stable build. HTH, Nuno -- "On the internet, nobody knows you''re a dog."
I''ll chime in here also. For Debian: I personally compiled linuses most recent kernel from source (which includes the latest support for xen) and it worked without a problem. I also compiled xen 4.2 from srouce from the repo and it ran without a problem whatsoever. On the XCP front, I would appreciate any links to compiling from source..if the link is not out of date :). Been wanting to compile XCP but been spending time prepping for my first kid! _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xen.org http://lists.xen.org/xen-users