Re: [Xen-users] will there be an Alpha port ?

[Mark Williamson <mark.williamson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I just bought two refurb bi-Alpha servers 3 days ago, and I am givent the
> idea to use them as share servers; for that, the best way and also most
> secure would be to use Xen ...

Alpha's are nice machines, it's a shame they disappeared *nostalgia, violin 
music plays*

> from that: would actual version of Xen2.0 or Xen3.0 be source complatible
> with Alpha processors (I have CPUS revision 56, 533MHz, 4Mb cache,
> professionnal edition, and could dump you compleet specs from /proc within
> 24h if asked).

Xen has quite a high proportion of arch-dependent code, simply because it's 
such a low-level piece of software.  Making the generic code (the scheduler, 
the sHype security stuff, some of the domain management stuff, etc) compile 
on Alpha should be easy enough but there'll still be a lot of 
machine-specific stuff that needs writing.

> If not, how long would the port take for the team ?
> how long for 4y experience C programmers ? (let say a team of 3 friends).

A good basis for the arch-dep code is probably the Linux Alpha architecture 
code - that should at least provide you with a decent starting point.

You'll need to get hold of an Alpha architecture manual and grok through all 
the lowlevel code in the kernel: firstly, you'll need to be familiar with 
this to get Xen itself to run on Alpha, secondly you'll need to modify this 
for the Alpha port of XenLinux.  A good understanding of the Linux memory 
management code would be useful too.

It'll probably be a nicer architecture to virtualise than x86 (which is really 
hard) but you should still expect it to be a rather major project.

> I found those Alpha servers for very cheap; I now need to keep them
> buzy/hot, and some society would need them to support an existing dedicated
> web server.

I assume you've thought about UML but want better performance?  If you need to 
get the server up and running soon, you might also like to consider Linux 
Vserver http://linux-vserver.org/.  This is a kernel patch that gives you 
virtual machine functionality similar to FreeBSD jails / Solaris Zones.  You 
can't do live-migration or run multiple difference operating systems but you 
*can* give several people "root" on virtual servers (running multiple 
distributions), with near native performance.

For a simple way to install a vserver, you could try using "debootstrap", or 
just untar the Gentoo base tarballs (if there's an Alpha port of Gentoo???).

Cheers,
Mark

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