Re: [Xen-users] first time w/ XEN - Looking for some advise

["Todd Deshane" <deshantm@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 2:09 PM, Charlie Reddington
<charlie.reddington@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a server that I can use to work with XEN on. It's a dell poweredge
> 1950, 64 bit 2.6ghz, single quad core cpu. Has about 2 GB of ram, and 1XX GB
> in a raid 5 setup.
>
> I've been reading and trying to gather what is the best way to set this up.
> My questions....
>

I'll take a shot at a couple of them, that I have personal experience with.

I'll leave the other ones for others to give their insights.

> 1.) What's the best say to setup the Raid for this? Is Raid 5 Ideal? (I have
> a 4 disk setup - currently 3 disks are part of the raid 5 w/ 1 being a
> hotspare).
>

Raid Levels often depend on workload and also the nature of the data being
protected. Others can probably give more insight, but I am sure you can also
find Raid advices all over the internet.

> 2.) What is the communities take on using CentOS 5 - x86_64 for the base OS?
>  Is there anything that the base install really needs? I generally try to
> shy away from installing Gnome/KDE/X on my servers as to reclaim some
> resources, but the idea of having a GUI to install this stuff would make
> things more simple I would think.
>

CentOS 5 x86_64 has worked well in my personal experience. Typically it is
recommended to use the Virt-Manager GUI, but it is not necessary to do so.
You can get away with all command line if no X is desired. You even still have
remote management options through virt-manager remotely, web-based solutions,
and other client based solutions.

> 3.) I've read about having a separate LVM for the virtual machines and one
> for your OS. Is this really the best way? I understand the reason for the
> LVM, so you can add more storage as you need it, but do you really need two?
>

You don't have to, it is often recommended for the flexibility of LVM,
but this can
also be a matter of personal preference depending on your performance,
flexibility,
etc. needs.

> 4.) My last question for now is , if your running an x86_64 system, are you
> limited to running only 64 bit OS's or like any machine you can still
> install x86 with no problems?
>

No, you can run both 64 bit and 32 bit systems.

Hope that helps.

> Thank you for any help,
>

Welcome and I am sure that you will get other useful answers from others in the
community.


Cheers,
Todd

-- 
Todd Deshane
http://todddeshane.net
check out our book: http://runningxen.com

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