Re: [Xen-users] Question about stability 32bit chroot and xen 2.0.7

[Daniel Hulme <dh286@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Will i be able to run a stable Xen server in a 32 bit chroot
> enviroment on Debian 3.1 amd64 stable?
I think you are confused about what Xen does. Xen is a hypervisor: it
goes between the kernel and the hardware. You can't run Xen "on" Debian;
you might run a Debian guest on Xen though. Xen can't run in a chroot
environment because Xen itself does not care about filesystems and such
high level things: it cares about letting the guest operating systems
use the hardware in a safe way (FSVO safe).

You can't run dom0 in a chroot because there is nothing to set up the
chroot environment for it: Xen boots it just as a normal bootloader
would. Similarly, you wouldn't want to run a domU in a chroot because
the domain already gets its own filesystem. Of course, in both cases you
can run *applications* in a chroot just as you would on a native Linux
(or NetBSD or FreeBSD) system.

To answer what you actually want to do rather than what you asked, Xen
does not support mixing 32-bit and 64-bit guests. Either Xen and all
guest operating systems are 64-bit, or they are all 32-bit. The same
applies to PAE/non-PAE. This support is planned, but not for some time
yet.

> The last option however needs a complete reinstall of the
> entire system if i want to replace Xen 2.0.7 with Xen 3.0
> if it becomes stable. So i'd rather go with the first option.

> But, otoh, my primary objective is to have a STABLE system.
> So what should i do?

It depends on whether you want a stable system right now. The unstable
tree (with PAE and 64-bit support) is expected to go into testing Real
Soon Now, and once it does and the number of people trying it out
increases, a stable 3.0 release should follow. If you can't wait that
long, go with 2.0.7 and 32-bit for now, and be ready to upgrade once you
are happy with the stability. If changing your arch and reinstalling the
packages is that much of a headache for you, consider changing your
backup and installation procedure. On production systems, it is
generally a good idea to set things up so if the system goes down with
all hands you can install an identical replacement and restore backed-up
data onto it with minimal administrator interaction. Of course, I
appreciate that it isn't always as easy as this...

-- 
"And  what if  I assign  a  hundred  programmers  to  it?"   The  master
programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be completed," he said.
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22pgp+singing%22  <-- childish but funny
http://surreal.istic.org/ <-- It's like a DEATH CIRCUS! | keyid 885b170d

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