Xen - large virtual machines
by Alex Davies
Hi Everyone,
I'm looking for a solution to run some Xen VM's with fairly significant(up
to ~30TB) local storage volumes. We plan to use two Sun "Thumper" x4540's
with 48*1TB drives (8 controllers).
I have a few questions, and would appreciate feedback before I try to
achieve something dumb or impossible :)
- Has Xen been tested / does Xen support very large volumes? We will
probably end up using ext3 (as it seems its the only supported option), so
no single volume in a VM will exceed ~16TB, but we will be at this end of
the spectrum on several volumes.
- Can anyone suggest a better option than creating 7 RAID5 arrays of 6
disks each (1 per controller); using the remaining 6 drives for RAID-10 for
DomU and hot spares and then adding the 7 RAID5 volumes to a LVM group,
creating a LV per Xen VM block device? Has anybody used mdadm and/or LVM to
handle this number of drives?
- We are required to be able to bring up VMs on one machine on another
within a reasonable period of time (this is defined as days, not hours) and
to keep the backup copy reasonably in sync (again, days not hours). Can
anyone comment on the suitability of rsync to copy such massive block
devices? We would use version 3, which I know has improved performance for
this sort of move, but is it going to literally take forever to checksum
48TB? If anyone is able to give example of rsync performance (same switch or
crossover - whichever we conclude is fastest) over gigabit Ethernet, that
would be a bonus. We expect there to be significant spare resources
available to domU at night for checksumming if required.
- I know XFS is not supported by RHEL, but does it work - and/or well?
I've seen several reports that suggest it performs far better (best summary
http://hepix.caspur.it/storage/hep_pdf/2007/Spring/Petkus_HEPiX_Spring06....)
but what is it like for reliability?
- Does anyone has any suggestions / improvements to this plan? Has
anybody done this before - with similar hardware?
- [An alternative scenario, if we can get it, would be a third Thumper -
in which case we would run half the VMs on each of two Thumpers running
RAID-10 (8 RAID-1 volumes, each a PV) for ~24TB per machine, and use the
third Thumper, partitioned as above with RAID-5 for more like RAID-5 levels
of storage efficiency, for backups of VMs and disaster recovery. Comments on
this would be fantastic too.]
The VMs are expected to be quite IO-heavy, hence the requirement for local
storage (not iSCSI) and para virtualization.
Any comments much appreciated.
Many thanks,
Alex
15 years, 7 months
Re: Re: kernel-xen-2.6.25.3-2.fc9.x86_64 don't boot
by Marco Guazzone
On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 12:14 PM, Felix Schwarz <felix schwarz web de> wrote:
>> Marco Guazzone schrieb:
>>
>> I've just installed the kernel-xen-2.6.25.3-2.fc9.x86_64 on my FC9 for
>> experimenting with XEN.
>>
>> Unfortunately when I boot from grub with this kernel (as a host system) the
>> system reboot after the message:
>> --- [snip] ---
>> XEN relinquishing vga console
>> --- [/snip] ---
>>
> kernel-xen from FC9 does not provide Dom0 ("host") functionality. Currently there is no usable Xen Dom0 in Fedora (besides Fedora 8 where support will be dropped in a few months).
>
> If you want to have a stable Xen Dom0, you should go for CentOS oder RHEL.
>
> If you just want "virtualization", you should look at KVM which is the upcoming "standard" virtualization for RHEL. Red Hat announced a few days ago that they think about dropping Xen completely when RHEL 5 is not supported any longer (2014).
>
> fs
Thank you for the info... I didn't know that.
Sorry for the question but if I understand the kernel-xen RPM is
unusable, is it?
If so, why does it exist?
If not, how can be used?
Thank you so much!
Cheers,
-- Marco
15 years, 7 months
AUTO: Alex Upton is out of the office (returning 09/15/2008)
by Alex.Upton＠instinet.com
I am out of the office until 09/15/2008.
I'm out of the office, please direct any support related issues to the "TSG
SA" team. Any issues in need of escalation should be sent directly to Bob
Sinko during this time.
Thank you,
Alex
Note: This is an automated response to your message "[Fedora-xen] Re:
kernel-xen-2.6.25.3-2.fc9.x86_64 don't boot" sent on 9/13/2008 7:45:29 AM.
This is the only notification you will receive while this person is away.
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15 years, 7 months
kernel-xen-2.6.25.3-2.fc9.x86_64 don't boot
by Marco Guazzone
Hi,
I've just installed the kernel-xen-2.6.25.3-2.fc9.x86_64 on my FC9 for
experimenting with XEN.
Unfortunately when I boot from grub with this kernel (as a host system) the
system reboot after the message:
--- [snip] ---
XEN relinquishing vga console
--- [/snip] ---
I've found a previous email where was suggested to change the boot
parameters:
* add the noreboot
* remove the quiet
but even doing so, nothing has changed.
Can someone help me?
Thank you very much!!
Cheers
-- Marco
15 years, 7 months
About daemon in Guest
by Guillaume
Hi,
I create VMs by copying files from my original fedora install to a partition
i'll use for para-virt. guest OS root (domU "/")
Can i disable in this guest OS all xen daemon all xen libs and so forth ? Or
they must be running in the guest OS too ?
thanks for your reply.
--
Guillaume
15 years, 7 months
Running F8 DomU on Centos52 Dom0
by LiRo
Hi Guys
After this message from Andy Burns (and the already know issues with
Dom0 support) I tried moving my running and working F8_DomU image to a
Centos5.2 Dom0 system...unfortunately I was not able to start the domain
there...Please see the errors I got:
Setting up hotplug.
Creating block device nodes.
Loading ehci-hcd.ko module
Loading ohci-hcd.ko module
Loading uhci-hcd.ko module
USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v3.0
Loading mbcache.ko module
Loading jbd.ko module
Loading ext3.ko module
Loading xenblk.ko module
xen-vbd: registered block device major 202
xvda: xvda1 xvda2 xvda3
Creating root device.
Mounting root filesystem.
VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev xvda2.
mount: error mounting /dev/root on /sysroot as ext3: Invalid argument
Setting up other filesystems.
Setting up new root fs
setuproot: moving /dev failed: No such file or directory
no fstab.sys, mounting internal defaults
setuproot: error mounting /proc: No such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting /sys: No such file or directory
Switching to new root and running init.
unmounting old /dev
unmounting old /proc
unmounting old /sys
switchroot: mount failed: No such file or directory
Booting has failed.
This seems like, the guest cannot find its root partition (even its
there...I use a .img-File which is the Guest installation...)
Anybody else had troubles moving a F8 DomU to Centos? Or I am missing
something?
Thanks for every help!
Best regards,
Rolf Linder
-------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht --------
Von: Andy Burns <fedora.lists(a)burns.me.uk>
An: fedora-xen(a)redhat.com
Betreff: Re: [Fedora-xen] Is it possible to run F8-DomUs under Fedora
10-Dom0?
Datum: Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:25:27 +0100
2008/8/30 Franz Von Hahn <franz.vonhahn(a)yahoo.de>:
> I'm a bit confused, if it will be possible to run a F8-DomU on top of a Fedora10-Dom0?
At the moment it looks unlikely that there will be an F10 dom0 (just
like there is currently no F9 dom0) you might want to consider moving
your dom0 to CentOS 5.2 instead of F10
--
Fedora-xen mailing list
Fedora-xen(a)redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-xen
15 years, 7 months
Xen Fedora image for DOMU
by pavankris
Hi ,
Can anyone point me to the link where i can download bare minimum
setup of fedora image for xen. I have the one which is like 16gb, but
i dont have that big space so it would be great if i am able to get a
smaller version of it .
Thanks
Pavan
15 years, 7 months
ANNOUNCE: New release virtinst 0.400.0
by Cole Robinson
I'm happy to announce a new virtinst release, version 0.400.0. It can be
downloaded at:
http://virt-manager.org/download.html
The direct link is:
http://virt-manager.org/download/sources/virtinst/virtinst-0.400.0.tar.gz
New in this release:
- New tool 'virt-convert': Allows converting between different types of
virt configuration files. Currently only supports vmx -> virt-image.
- New tool 'virt-pack': Converts virt-image xml format to vmx and packs
in a tar.gz. (Note this will likely be merged with virt-convert in
the future).
- virt-install: Support for remote VM installation. Can use install media
and disk images on remote host if shared via libvirt. Allows
provisioning storage on remote pools.
- virt-install new options:
new --wait option, allows putting a hard time limit on installs.
new --sound option, to create VM with soundcard emulation.
new --disk option, allows specifying media as a path, storage volume, or
a pool to provision storage on, device type, and several other options.
Deprecates --file, --size, --nonsparse.
new --prompt option. Input prompting is no longer the default, this
option turns it back on.
- virt-install: allow setting cpu pinning information for qemu/kvm VMs.
- virt-install: numa support via --cpuset=auto option.
- virt-image: --replace option to overwrite existing VM image file.
- virt-image: support multiple network interfaces in virt-image format.
- use virtio disk/net drivers if chosen os entry supports it (Fedora 9/10,
Ubuntu Hardy).
- Numerous bug fixes and minor improvements.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this release whether by testing,
bug reporting, submitting patches, and otherwise sending feedback!
Thanks,
Cole
15 years, 7 months
ANNOUNCE: New release virt-manager 0.6.0
by Cole Robinson
I'm happy to announce a new virt-manager release, version 0.6.0. The
release can be downloaded from:
http://virt-manager.org/download.html
The direct download link is:
http://virt-manager.org/download/sources/virt-manager/virt-manager-0.6.0....
This release includes:
- Remote storage management and provisioning: View, add, remove, and
provision libvirt managed storage. Attach managed storage to a
remote VM.
- Remote VM installation support: Install from managed media (cdrom)
or PXE. Simple install time storage provisioning.
- VM details and console windows merged: each VM is now represented by a
single tabbed window.
- Use Avahi to list libvirtd instances on network.
- Hypervisor Autoconnect: Option to connect to hypervisor at virt-manager
start up.
- Option to add sound device emulation when creating new guests.
- Virtio and USB options when adding a disk device.
- Allow viewing and removing VM sound, serial, parallel, and console devices.
- Specifying a specific keymap when adding display device.
- Allow app to keep running with only a VM window open.
- Allow limiting amount of stored stats history.
- Numerous bug fixes and minor improvements.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this release through testing, bug
reporting, submitting patches, and otherwise sending in feedback!
Thanks,
Cole
15 years, 7 months
[PATCH 0 of 7] x86: lay groundwork for Xen domain 0 support
by Pasi Kärkkäinen
----- Forwarded message from Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy(a)goop.org> -----
From: Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy(a)goop.org>
To: Ingo Molnar <mingo(a)elte.hu>
Cc: linux-kernel(a)vger.kernel.org, "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa(a)zytor.com>,
Xen Devel <xen-devel(a)lists.xensource.com>,
Andi Kleen <andi(a)firstfloor.org>
Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2008 15:21:12 -0700
Subject: [PATCH 0 of 7] x86: lay groundwork for Xen domain 0 support
Hi Ingo,
This series begins to lay the groundwork for Xen domain 0 support.
Domain 0 is much like a normal Xen domain, but it is also allowed to
have direct access to the underlying hardware (including both IO space
and various BIOS tables), so it can run device drivers, etc. This
means that we need to be able to distinguish between a Xen domain's
normal pseudo-physical address space, and the real machine physical
address space.
This series:
- Adds a new pte flag - _PAGE_IOMAP - used to indicate that a mapping
is intended to map an IO device, and the physical address is
actually a real machine physical address rather than a
pseudo-physical address. This is exposed as PAGE_KERNEL_IO and so
on. ioremap() and early_ioremap() are modified to set this flag,
as they (should) always be used to map IO devices and not other
memory. By default __supported_pte_mask masks this flag out, so it
won't end up in the final pagetable. The Xen (and any other) code
which cares about this flag unmask it from __supported_pte_mask.
- Add early_memremap() to deal with the cases where early_ioremap()
actually being used to map normal memory.
- Remove a bogus check in x86-64's implementation of
set_pte_vaddr_pud(), which prevents memory mappings from being
updated.
- Convert __acpi_map_table to use early_ioremap(), rather than have
its own implementation.
- Make __acpi_map_table always map the memory rather than assuming
that the linear map maps some of the acpi tables. This won't be
true in the virtual case, and always mapping doesn't hurt in the
native case.
I've tested these patches on both 32 and 64 native booting, and it all
works for me.
Thanks,
J
15 years, 7 months
