Linode.com Forum

egatenby · Joined: 19 Sep 2004 Posts: 26 Location: New York, NY

Are there any plans to offer non-Linux guests under Xen? I am very interested in using FreeBSD as a guest OS -- I used it for many years from 3.0 until 5.3 and consider it to be a great server OS.

I am even willing to be a guinea pig... :)

hotgazpacho · Joined: 07 Dec 2007 Posts: 15 Location: Tampa, FL

<kidding>
Then they might have to rename the company *node (ala *nix, to describe unix-ish OS's). I don't think *node.com is a valid domain name, though.
</kidding>

tofu · Joined: 01 Jul 2006 Posts: 29 Location: Ghent, Belgium

Is there a Xen machine in every datacenter? I'm having 2 Linodes in Dallas now, and I thinking of moving 1 to a Xen machine. But I don't want to "leave" Dallas, it gives me the best ping from Belgium, Europe.

pclissold · Joined: 24 Oct 2003 Posts: 472 Location: Netherlands

tofu wrote: Is there a Xen machine in every datacenter?
Yes.

bdonlan · Joined: 22 Jan 2008 Posts: 70

caker wrote:
What is Xen, you ask? Xen is a virtualization technology that provides a few benefits over User Mode Linux, namely: performance, the ability to have SMP Linodes, and kernel modules.

I note that the current Xen kernel has no module support - I don't particularly need it for anything urgent, but I'm a bit curious to why; is this waiting for more security testing?

Will the ability to upload custom kernels be available at some time? From what I can see, the security implications will be the same as with modules.

caker · Joined: 15 Apr 2003 Posts: 2392 Location: Galloway, NJ

Last night I released a new Xen kernel, 2.6.18.8-domU-linode5, which "Latest 2.6" now points to. It's built from the latest stable Xen tree (Xen 3.2.0), and does have module support enabled. Most likely you'll need to source to this tree to build modules -- so I'll make that available soon.

As far as custom kernels and other weird things: I do see support in the future, but I want to get to a point where the platform is stable first.

-Chris

pclissold · Joined: 24 Oct 2003 Posts: 472 Location: Netherlands

caker wrote: …and does have module support enabled…
Cool!

mstarks01 · Joined: 03 Nov 2007 Posts: 5

What is the incentive for participating in the beta? Is there a discount to the monthly fee?

zunzun · Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 10:15 am Post subject:

mstarks01 wrote: What is the incentive for participating in the beta? Is there a discount to the monthly fee?

No direct financial incentive, but my site now runs with 4 cpus available and my tests show excellent SMP usage and floating point performance. I am continuing to test, for example I'm now checking operating system pipe performance between processes running on different CPUs.

James

cherring · Joined: 17 Feb 2006 Posts: 83

mstarks01 wrote: What is the incentive for participating in the beta? Is there a discount to the monthly fee?

It's cool? It's fast? It's not like a linode costs that much to begin with ...

mfoster · Joined: 15 Aug 2006 Posts: 1

Are 64-bit domU's supported in this Xen beta?

Package management is my incentive to move, not SMP or >4GB addressing. My trusty linode is the last 32-bit linux box that I'm managing. Means building custom packages twice.

bdonlan · Joined: 22 Jan 2008 Posts: 70

mfoster wrote: Are 64-bit domU's supported in this Xen beta?

Package management is my incentive to move, not SMP or >4GB addressing. My trusty linode is the last 32-bit linux box that I'm managing. Means building custom packages twice.
The current domU kernels are 32-bit. I don't know if the host supports it - here's (one cpu out of) my linode's /proc/cpuinfo if it helps:
Code: processor : 3
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 15
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5335 @ 2.00GHz
stepping : 11
cpu MHz : 2000.070
cache size : 4096 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx tm2 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips : 3970.75

zunzun · Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 4:10 am Post subject: Re: 64-bit domU support?

bdonlan wrote: model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5335 @ 2.00GHz

Xeons are 8-bit CPU's, that's why the server needs 4 of them: 8 * 4 = 32, so that the server can run a 32-bit operating system. I learned that from my years at Microsoft, don't you Linux guys know anything about computers? Macs have 32 1-bit CPU's which is why thay can't run Windows, a lot of people don't know that.

James

mwalling · Joined: 10 Dec 2007 Posts: 145

zunzun wrote: Xeons are 8-bit CPU's, that's why the server needs 4 of them: 8 * 4 = 32, so that the server can run a 32-bit operating system. I learned that from my years at Microsoft, don't you Linux guys know anything about computers? Macs have 32 1-bit CPU's which is why thay can't run Windows, a lot of people don't know that.

Would you like to provide some sources to back this statement up?

I should also add that the current generation of Mac's use off the shelf Intel processors, not 32 "1 Bit" processors.

zunzun · Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 9:06 am Post subject: Re: 64-bit domU support?

mwalling wrote: Would you like to provide some sources to back this statement up?

I was wrong, actually Macs use 64 1/2-bit CPUs to reach 32 bits - sorry, my mistake. Windows can't run on 1/2-bit CPUs, so *that* is why XP won't run on Macs. I stand corrected.

James

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