[wellylug] Xen and Windows

[Donald Gordon]

I've run Xen on debian since Xen 2.0.mumble.  The packaged Xen in lenny 
works quite well ... if you know what you're doing.  Which I guess 
applies to most of debian that isn't a flashy GUI.

I gave a talk on Xen to the LUG several years ago, my slides are at 
http://dis.org.nz/talks/xen/.  Most of it still applies, apart  from the 
compiling-it-yourself bit.  And it doesn't mention running windows.  And 
guest OSes with Xen compatible kernels (like lenny) can use something 
called PyGrub to boot the kernel the guest installed.

Er, so maybe not much of it applies anymore.  Unfortunately it sounds 
like debian won't be including a dom0 kernel in squeeze:

http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-kernel@lists.debian.org/msg47650.html

(in Xen terms, "dom0" is the host VM that talks to real devices etc, and 
a "domU" is a guest VM that gets to the disk/network via virtual devices 
provided by the dom0)

Modern kernels (such as what's in lenny ... so not that modern really) 
have an extension called "paravirt_ops" that lets you run them under xen 
(and potentially other hypervisors) using a binary that also runs on the 
bare hardware.

donald


William Hamilton wrote:
> Donald, my intention would normally be to use Debian (yes I am one of 
> those) but know so little about Xen at this stage not sure if that is 
> the best plan or not.
>
> W
>
> 2009/8/17 Donald Gordon <don at dis.org.nz <mailto:don at dis.org.nz>>
>
>     Modern AMD processors (I think anything that goes in an AM2 socket
>     or later) do virtualisation, as do most modern Intel processors
>     (core duo onward).
>
>     Are you intending to run vanilla Xen on top of a random linux
>     distro (I use debian, lenny has recent Xen packaged), or use a
>     product like XenServer?
>
>     donald
>
>     William Hamilton wrote:
>>     I am looking at putting some time into Xen as a couple of clients
>>     are making noises about virtualisation blah blah.  Having had a
>>     quick read I see that Windows is not greatly supported unless the
>>     processor has virtualisation built in.  
>>
>>     Anyone here doing a mix of Linux/Windows on Xen? (one particular
>>     client has a Windows app they cannot get rid of at this stage).
>>      Any recomendations on hardware?  A number of my boxes are
>>     SuperMicro 1U and 2U which I have had good experiences with.
>>
>>     tia 
>>
>>     W
>>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>>       
>
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