Re: [Xen-users] Installing modules - switch to Vmware ?

[Xen Help <steven@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Henning Sprang wrote:
> On 12/17/06, Xen Help <steven@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Does anyone knows how to have modules installed when compiling and
> > installing Xen as the README file is incomplete about it.
> > I cannot simply run make module_install somwhow.
> What do you mean with "i cannot run it somehow?" (if nor just the
> senetences you wrote after this, which mean, you can run it, but it
> doesn't have the effect you where hoping for)
Well what I meant is that the "xen recommended way" to run (or build) 
with only one kernel for both dom0 and domU will not boot at all on 
CentOs4-4, I spent days on it without any hope of solving the issue with 
the list's help only, while I discovered that the compiled dom0 and dumU 
version would boot, the only problem remaining is having the right 
modules installed in /lib/modules/ for iptables, they do not show up, 
see the compared listing.
I cannot get the modules compiled and installed into the right directory.

I believe the iptables modules for latest Xen are not compatible with 
CentOs 4-4, maybe with CentOs 4-3.
Is there any published data about Xen compatibility with the distros 
versions? I mean they upgrade in each new version Glibc and Gcc so this 
seems to be a major consideration to anyone wanting to keep system 
updated and secured?
The 2.6.16.29-xen0 version below do not have iptables modules installed.

total 48K
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root 4.0K Dec 17 16:54 2.6.16.29-xen
drwxr-xr-x   8 root root 4.0K Dec 15 11:04 .
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root 4.0K Dec 14 21:31 2.6.16.29-xenU
drwxr-xr-x  11 root root 4.0K Dec 14 21:20 ..
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root 4.0K Dec 14 21:20 2.6.16.29-xen0
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root 4.0K Dec 14 15:36 2.6.9-42.0.3.EL

I will make a few more test tonight. I also tried with the newest 
XenExpress, BUT unfortunately I ran into same kind of problems but with 
domU and no support at all unless I pay some bucks, which is not what I 
think about open source. This is very very bad. On this version we do 
not know much about it's original OS, it uses LVM BUT the /dev/hdx 
/dev/sdx are formated in Linux 8e instead of LVM which is kind of 
strange, also when I copy over existing CentOS4-4 domU which are running 
fine on old servers, it gives very little error messages but do not run 
and the doc does define what importing a server means (must be the 
server config file from what I understand), so I am back to square one.
Because we have production servers we will have to switch to Vmware 
which seems better documented if we cannot find a decent solution before 
the end of the year,  but it is sad as I was having fun with Xen over 
the last 2 years and invested a lot of time in it, it just became 
impossible to manage.
I believe part of the problem is the fact that Xen became somehow a 
closed source system and that the fact we cannot get it up and running 
as one would expect is a planned decision, the lack of information about 
the exact requirements is an indication of the direction this project is 
going. If nobody can find out which version of libraries are compatible 
with any given released version of Xen, you imagine how hard update 
decisions becomes, which in my opinion is the very definition of 
unmanageable. The bad thing is the considerable waste of time to try to 
guess things.
If someone at XenSource is reading, you are about to lose a potential 
client as I am about to switch to another virtualization technology 
soon. We must have spent over 120 hours since the first broken version 
of Xen under FC5 in August and we tried really hard to keep our 
production servers afloat with Xen, BUT now we are stuck with old 
version we cannot upgrade, which is a lot of stress we would rather not 
have. All distro we tried were broken somewhere, as well as all binaries 
and compiling from source is just a nightmare of guessing and trial and 
error tests. Reading the list we see people have all the same problems.
We had hopes from the newest XenExpress but it did not help (the Java 
management interface is cute though) , I feel Xen is becoming more and 
more Windozed which is not exactly what we are interested in. I hope Xen 
will improve, BUT now for us it is a huge management problem and a 
serious technological constraint. Switching to Vmware becomes more and 
more of a necessity than a happy choice.
++
> > I did compile the three
> > flavors (-xen -xen0 -xenU) with iptables options BUT the modules are
> > never installed. I am on CentOS 4-4
> Where do you expect them to be? Or, what are the smyptoms for your
> assumption that they are not installed?
>
> Henning

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