Re: [Xen-users] New to Xen

[Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

admin@xxxxxxx wrote:
> I am new to Xen, has 14 years of Linux experience so I have no problem 
> tackling difficult topics, but dont want to waste time unnecessarily.
> I need the shortest path to install a Xen Dom0 and then Xen guest images.
>
> 1) If it exists, I will apprec iate it if I can be pointed to a Xen 
> enabled distribution that would enable me to immediately start 
> configuring DomU guests. (I would be very surprised if it doesnt exist)
Last time I looked, OpenSuse did a very good job of integrating Xen.  
I've never been a fan of RPM based distros, and I'm not sure of where 
OpenSuse stands vis-a-vis the current Xen release, but if you really 
want to just install and move on to configuring DomUs - that might be a 
place to start.
Personally, I do most of my work on Debian, and my production servers 
are still running Lenny and Xen 3 - so my experience is dated (and about 
to get refreshed):
- the basic install is easy: simply an apt-get of the current package

- there's a bit of trickiness in getting all the various configuration 
stuff right - in lots of places (from kernel parameters in Grub and on - 
and I expect this has changed again, what with grub changes going from 
Lenny to Squeeze) - there are things to worry about like memory 
ballooning, pinning VCPUs, time sources, etc. -- make sure to read 
through http://wiki.debian.org/Xen
For what it's worth, I've found Xen more capable than all the other 
virtualization alternatives - at least for my purposes - but I've also 
found the open source version to be rather touchy, and it takes a lot of 
time and attention to get everything wired together reliably (more so, 
if you're building any kind of high-availability cluster).
Miles Fidelman

--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In<fnord>  practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra



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