Re: [Xen-users] Longtime *nix user/admin planning on making the move to Xen

[Casey DeLorme <cdelorme@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

I have never tried XCP so I can't give you any advice there, but unless you are using more than one physical machine Xen with the xl toolstack should work fine.

I recommend sticking to the distribution you feel more comfortable using, especially if time is not a factor.  Getting your system working as desired will probably come down to trial and error.

I can only think of two compelling reasons to go with another distribution.  Abundance of documentation, and greater support.  Picking a more commonly used distribution means more guides are available and xen-users list may have more able-bodies to answer questions.

Dom0 may require a custom kernel anyways, but with passthrough only DomU needs the HD Tuner driver.  Dom0 just needs the BDF to identify & pass the device.

If you are considering Debian you might find this useful:

http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Xen_Debian_Wheezy_PCI_Passthrough_Tutorial

Best of luck,

~Casey

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 1:18 PM, Braindead <Braindead@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I've been meaning to change my local home server to several virtual machines running under Xen.  Primarily to better serve my home/office network needs.  I've been running a Gentoo server that's become rather cluttered (smtp,imap,pop,http,https,ossec-hids,firewall,router,packet inspection,workstation, backup server....... bloody everything!) so if I want to work on anything or need to reboot everything goes down of course.

My first thought was to make my life simple and go with the XCP iso installation, however according to this: http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_/_XCP_/_XCP_on_Linux_Overview that doesn't support 64-bit and I've got 16GB ram. I could install from packages it seems but once I get to that point I'm thinking I might as well install Xen rather than XCP and have the latest hypervisor.

As a current Gentoo user I'm tempted to stick with that though I'm not against Debian/Ubuntu or other distros either.  Perhaps there are other compelling reasons to go with another distro?

I'm planning on moving a mythtv backend into a domU, so I'll need to compile kernel support for the pcHDTV HD-5500 tuner card. Which I suspect means custom kernel build anyway? Presumably I can use the PCI passthrough feature to make the domU system see the 5500..hopefully.

I have a lot of experience with virtualization (VMWare and Hyper-V) just none with Xen.. I've been reading the wiki and I'm fairly sure I can get setup without any trouble.

Kinda hoping for a gut check/tips/advice from users that might help me avoid doing the wrong things.  I'm not in a big hurry and pretty much prepared to have to redo things if I go down the wrong path ;-)

Thanks for any tips/advice/hints...

_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xen.org/xen-users

_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xen.org/xen-users