No Dom0 support in Fedora 9 and Fedora 8 EOL

[Martin Vuille]

I'm putting together a virtualized server. I was planning to use 
Fedora 9, until I found out that Fedora 9 won't run as a Dom0, so 
I ended up using Fedora 8 instead.

I also learned that the standard EOL policy is to discontinue 
support for release N one month after the release of release N+2.

Since Dom0 support isn't expected until Fedora 10, it sounds like 
this means that I will have to upgrade my system in the first 
month immediately following the release of Fedora 10, or lose 
support. Neither option seems particularly reasonable to me.

Since upgrading from Fedora 8 to Fedora 9 isn't an option for 
anyone using Xen, I am wondering if there is any plan to extend 
Fedora 8's support period beyond the usual one month?

MV

[Felix Schwarz]

Martin Vuille schrieb:
>  Since upgrading from Fedora 8 to Fedora 9 isn't an option for 
>  anyone using Xen, I am wondering if there is any plan to extend 
>  Fedora 8's support period beyond the usual one month? 
Frankly I don't know but I don't think that this is very likely to happen. If 
upgrading is an issue for you, you should look at RHEL (or one of the 'gratis' 
clones like CentOS).

fs

[Felix Schwarz]

Oh, and besides that I'm note sure if running Xen/Dom0 on Fedora 8 is 
advisable from a security pov: I think the xen kernel (2.6.21) lacks quite a 
few security patches that the normal Fedora kernel already got...

fs

[Martin Vuille]

Felix Schwarz <felix.schwarz(a)web.de&gt; wrote in
news:[e-mail]: 

>  Oh, and besides that I'm note sure if running Xen/Dom0 on
>  Fedora 8 is advisable from a security pov: I think the xen
>  kernel (2.6.21) lacks quite a few security patches that the
>  normal Fedora kernel already got...  
OK, so what would you recommend then?

MV

[Alain Williams]

On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 09:41:57AM +0000, Martin Vuille wrote:
>  Felix Schwarz <felix.schwarz(a)web.de&gt; wrote in
>  news:[e-mail]: 
>  
>  > Oh, and besides that I'm note sure if running Xen/Dom0 on
>  > Fedora 8 is advisable from a security pov: I think the xen
>  > kernel (2.6.21) lacks quite a few security patches that the
>  > normal Fedora kernel already got... 
>  
>  OK, so what would you recommend then? 
What are your requirements ?
Perhaps:

* Modern Dom0
* Ability to run LVM
* ISO image to install from

For me:
* x86_64
* something that comes with X windows

-- 
Alain Williams
Linux Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer.
[phone]  http://www.phcomp.co.uk/
Parliament Hill Computers Ltd. Registration Information:
http://www.phcomp.co.uk/contact.php
Chairman of UKUUG: http://www.ukuug.org/
#include <std_disclaimer.h>

[Martin Vuille]

Felix Schwarz <felix.schwarz(a)web.de&gt; wrote in
news:[e-mail]: 

>  Martin Vuille schrieb:
> > Since upgrading from Fedora 8 to Fedora 9 isn't an option
> > for anyone using Xen, I am wondering if there is any plan to
> > extend Fedora 8's support period beyond the usual one month?
>  
>  Frankly I don't know but I don't think that this is very
>  likely to happen. If upgrading is an issue for you, you
>  should look at RHEL (or one of the 'gratis' clones like
>  CentOS).  
I don't have an issue with upgrading; I chose Fedora because I 
wanted a distro that was at the leading edge.

But that doesn't mean that I want to upgrade to the latest Fedora 
release on the same day it's released. I will upgrade during the 
one-month grace period if I have to, but I would have been more 
comfortable with a little more wiggle room.

MV

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 09:40:57AM +0000, Martin Vuille wrote:
>  Felix Schwarz <felix.schwarz(a)web.de&gt; wrote in
>  news:[e-mail]: 
>  > Martin Vuille schrieb:
>  >> Since upgrading from Fedora 8 to Fedora 9 isn't an option
>  >> for anyone using Xen, I am wondering if there is any plan to
>  >> extend Fedora 8's support period beyond the usual one month?
>  > 
>  > Frankly I don't know but I don't think that this is very
>  > likely to happen. If upgrading is an issue for you, you
>  > should look at RHEL (or one of the 'gratis' clones like
>  > CentOS). 
>  
>  I don't have an issue with upgrading; I chose Fedora because I 
>  wanted a distro that was at the leading edge.
>  
>  But that doesn't mean that I want to upgrade to the latest Fedora 
>  release on the same day it's released. I will upgrade during the 
>  one-month grace period if I have to, but I would have been more 
>  comfortable with a little more wiggle room. 
You'll need to ask Dan Berrange to be certain, but I'm pretty
sure the plan is to have a dom0 kernel ready some time during the
lifetime of F9.

The reason we don't have an F9 dom0 kernel right now is because
there *isn't one*.  Ask XenSource to provide something more recent
than > 2 year old Linux 2.6.18 support!  Red Hat are committing
two full time developers right now to fix this situation, but it
is NOT our fault.

You might also want to try out KVM.

Rich.

[Martin Vuille]

"Richard W.M. Jones" <rjones(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote in
news:[e-mail]: 

>  
>  You'll need to ask Dan Berrange to be certain, but I'm pretty
>  sure the plan is to have a dom0 kernel ready some time during
>  the lifetime of F9.
>  
>  The reason we don't have an F9 dom0 kernel right now is
>  because there *isn't one*.  Ask XenSource to provide
>  something more recent than > 2 year old Linux 2.6.18 support!
>   Red Hat are committing two full time developers right now to
>  fix this situation, but it is NOT our fault.
>   
Thanks for the clarification. I'll keep on the lookout for updates 
in F9.

MV

[Daniel P. Berrange]

On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 09:48:17PM +0000, Martin Vuille wrote:
>  "Richard W.M. Jones" <rjones(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote in
>  news:[e-mail]: 
>  
>  > 
>  > You'll need to ask Dan Berrange to be certain, but I'm pretty
>  > sure the plan is to have a dom0 kernel ready some time during
>  > the lifetime of F9.
>  > 
>  > The reason we don't have an F9 dom0 kernel right now is
>  > because there *isn't one*.  Ask XenSource to provide
>  > something more recent than > 2 year old Linux 2.6.18 support!
>  >  Red Hat are committing two full time developers right now to
>  > fix this situation, but it is NOT our fault.
>  > 
>  
>  Thanks for the clarification. I'll keep on the lookout for updates 
>  in F9. 
Fedora 9 is basically DomU only and we're still working on getting the
x86_64 patches accepted in upstream LKML trees. Best guess is that this
will be 2.6.27 . In parallel we're still working on Dom0 support with
pvops

  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/XenPvopsDom0

Daniel.
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[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 05:25:33PM -0400, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
>  The reason we don't have an F9 dom0 kernel right now is because
>  there *isn't one*.  Ask XenSource to provide something more recent
>  than > 2 year old Linux 2.6.18 support!  Red Hat are committing
>  two full time developers right now to fix this situation, but it
>  is NOT our fault. 
It's been pointed out to me that Jeremy Fitzhardinge (at XenSource)
is driving the pv_ops work which will bring a modern dom0 into
Fedora 9 or 10.

I don't want to forget or diminish Jeremy's crucial efforts.

Rich.

[Alain Williams]

On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 12:23:10AM +0000, Martin Vuille wrote:
>  I'm putting together a virtualized server. I was planning to use
>
>  Fedora 9, until I found out that Fedora 9 won't run as a Dom0, so 
>  I ended up using Fedora 8 instead. 
Damn - I have just run into the buffers because of that.
I have just reinstalled my test box with Fedora 9 ... wanted to
run several guests under it. Shame it was not flagged up bigger somewhere.

-- 
Alain Williams
Linux Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer.
[phone]  http://www.phcomp.co.uk/
Parliament Hill Computers Ltd. Registration Information:
http://www.phcomp.co.uk/contact.php
Chairman of UKUUG: http://www.ukuug.org/
#include <std_disclaimer.h>

[Evan Lavelle]

Alain Williams wrote:
>  On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 12:23:10AM +0000, Martin Vuille wrote:
> > I'm putting together a virtualized server. I was planning to use 
> > Fedora 9, until I found out that Fedora 9 won't run as a Dom0, so 
> > I ended up using Fedora 8 instead.
>  
>  Damn - I have just run into the buffers because of that.
>  I have just reinstalled my test box with Fedora 9 ... wanted to
>  run several guests under it. Shame it was not flagged up bigger somewhere. 
I'm currently on an F8 Dom0 at the moment, but I'll need to upgrade Xen 
fairly soon. At the moment, it seems to me that one of the Solaris 
distros is the way to go, particularly since they have built-in Windows 
PV drivers. There also seems to be a lot of development activity.

-Evan