fedora-xen list news draft
Hello,
I started with a couple of noteworthy threads on the fedora-xen list and
put the following very preliminary draft together in the last couple
hours.
Is there a consensus on where I could/should park this on the wiki while
under construction?
Any comments on my structure/methodology so far? Some threads can get
quite detailed and I'm sure it's not expected that they all get the same
level of treatment for FWN.
I would like to make the summaries more useful by linking to related
articles in the wiki. Is this kosher?
Also, I applied to the fedora-news group on FAS and look forward to
membership approval and doing what I can.
== Fedora-xen List ==
This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-xen list.
=== kernel-xen is dead ===
[MarkMcLoughlin|Mark McLoughlin] wrote[1] to say the
<code>kernel-xen</code> package is dead. Which is to say
<code>kernel</code> can now support x86 and x86_64 domU guests and
<code>kernel-xen</code> will be dropped from Rawhide.
Hiding between those lines is the fact that there is no Dom0 kernel.
Without which a domU must be booted via a [Features/XenPvops
paravirt_ops] kernel or with KVM-based xenner.
The conversation then turned to the matter of migrating away from Xen
and support for systems without hardware virtualization.
So, [PaulWouters|Paul Wouters] asked[2] if there was a howto for
migration to KVM. It seemed there is not.
[AlainWilliams|Alain Williams] realized that Fedora 9
[Docs/Beats/Virtualization has no Dom0 support] after installing it.
When he asked why [MarkMcLoughlin|Mark McLoughlin] pointed[3] out the
problems with <code>kernel-xen</code> being based on a much older kernel
than <code>kernel</code> creating a time sink, so the decision was made
to rebase to the upstream kernel which supports paravirt_ops. This
decision was first announced[4] back in Nov 2007 by [DanielBerrange |
Daniel P. Berrange].
[MarkMcLoughlin|Mark McLoughlin] also stated[3] that Dom0 support at F10
launch looks unlikely. Fortunately we have a more positive news on that
front below.
[DaleBewley|Dale Bewley] bemoaned[5] the fact that he has no budget to
upgrade to HVM capable hardware and will have to stick on F8 until F10
has Dom0 support.
[StephenSmoogen|Stephen John Smoogen] pointed[6] out that RHEL5 and
CentOS5 are options for Dom0 on non-HVM hardware. [DanielBerrange|Daniel
P. Berrange] expressed[7] some empathy and the desire for such support,
but reitterated it isn't viable until Dom0 is ported to pv_ops.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2008-July/msg00044.html
[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2008-July/msg00046.html
[3] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2008-July/msg00048.html
[4]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2007-November/msg00106.html
[5] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2008-July/msg00049.html
[6] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2008-July/msg00052.html
[7] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2008-July/msg00053.html
=== State of Xen in upstream Linux ===
[PasiKärkkäinen|Pasi Kärkkäinen] thoughtfully forwarded[1] a long
detailed xen kernel status message which was sent to the xen-devel list
by [JeremyFitzhardinge|Jeremy Fitzhardinge]. Jeremy pointed out that
mainline kernel is at 2.6.27-rc1 and his current patch stack is pretty
much empty after being merged into linux-2.6.git.
Jeremy reitterated the fact that Fedora 9's kernel-xen package was based
on the mainline kernel even though it is a separate package, and now
that kernel-xen has been dropped from rawhide Fedora 10 will have only
one kernel package. Jeremy said his focus in the next kernel development
window will be dom0 support with the hope it will be merged into 2.6.28.
[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2008-July/msg00058.html