Anyone Actually Using Virtual Linux Servers?

[Kristian Erik Hermansen]

On 9/9/07, Jarod Wilson <jarod-ajLrJawYSntWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> In Red Hat land, we've added support for kvm to libvirt, virt-install
> and virt-manager, so you can script up just about anything for kvm,
> so far as I know.

Ah yes, I found them in Ubuntu too.  Very cool!  Even has some python
bindings (/me gets excited).  So, being a python fan, I will put this
to some use :-)

root at peter-desktop:~# aptitude show libvirt0
Package: libvirt0
State: not installed
Version: 0.1.8-0ubuntu2
Priority: optional
Section: devel
Maintainer: Andrew Mitchell <ajmitch-GeWIH/nMZzLQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org>
Uncompressed Size: 217k
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.5-0ubuntu1), libxen3.0, libxml2 (>= 2.6.27)
Description: library for interfacing with Xen & other virtualization systems
 Libvirt is a C toolkit to interract with the virtualization capabilities of
 recent versions of Linux (and other OSes). The library aim at providing long
 term stable C API initially for the Xen paravirtualization but should be able
 to integrate other virtualization mechanisms if needed.

root at peter-desktop:~# aptitude show libvirt-bin
Package: libvirt-bin
State: not installed
Version: 0.1.8-0ubuntu2
Priority: optional
Section: universe/devel
Maintainer: Andrew Mitchell <ajmitch-GeWIH/nMZzLQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org>
Uncompressed Size: 176k
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.5-0ubuntu1), libncurses5 (>= 5.4-5), libreadline5 (>= 5.2),
         libvirt0, libxen3.0, libxml2 (>= 2.6.27)
Description: the programs for the libvirt library
 Libvirt is a C toolkit to interract with the virtualization capabilities of
 recent versions of Linux (and other OSes). The library aim at providing long
 term stable C API initially for the Xen paravirtualization but should be able
 to integrate other virtualization mechanisms if needed.

 This package contains the supporting binaries to use with libvirt

root at peter-desktop:~# aptitude show libvirt-dev
Package: libvirt-dev
State: not installed
Version: 0.1.8-0ubuntu2
Priority: optional
Section: devel
Maintainer: Andrew Mitchell <ajmitch-GeWIH/nMZzLQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org>
Uncompressed Size: 340k
Depends: libvirt0 (= 0.1.8-0ubuntu2)
Description: development files for the libvirt library
 Libvirt is a C toolkit to interract with the virtualization capabilities of
 recent versions of Linux (and other OSes). The library aim at providing long
 term stable C API initially for the Xen paravirtualization but should be able
 to integrate other virtualization mechanisms if needed.

 This package contains the header files and static libraries which are needed
 for developing the applications with libvirt.

Package: python-libvirt
State: not installed
Version: 0.1.8-0ubuntu2
Priority: optional
Section: universe/devel
Maintainer: Andrew Mitchell <ajmitch-GeWIH/nMZzLQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org>
Uncompressed Size: 184k
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.5-0ubuntu1), libvirt0, libxen3.0, python-central (>=
         0.5.8), python (>= 2.5)
Provides: python2.5-libvirt
Description: libvirt python bindings
 Libvirt is a C toolkit to interract with the virtualization capabilities of
 recent versions of Linux (and other OSes). The library aim at providing long
 term stable C API initially for the Xen paravirtualization but should be able
 to integrate other virtualization mechanisms if needed.

 This package contains python bindings for the libvirt library


> http://virt-manager.org/

Looks nice -- very similar to VMware management console...

> True. Hell, my laptop can't even run Xen or VMware either...
> (PowerBook G4)

*cringe*

> $ uname -r
> 2.6.23-0.164.rc5.fc8
>
> (I'm a few days and git snaps behind now, I was out of town all week :)

Ah, yeah, I'm on 2.6.22, but I'm not hacking kernels that often.  I'm
sure you have to deal with cutting-edge kernel features on a daily
basis for RH...

> Oh, many of us are already much more fond of kvm -- so many things,
> like frequency scaling, acpi, etc., Just Work, while they're not even
> close to functional under xen yet. Problem is, we've sorta kinda
> committed to supporting xen for the next 7 years with RHEL5, as well
> as providing a smooth upgrade path come RHEL6. My current favorite
> quote with respect to Xen Source's purchase by Citrix: "they (XS) got
> the gold mine, we (RH) got the shaft". So yeah, we've gotta keep
> working on xen. Don't be led to believe that means we're not doing a
> lot on the kvm front too though... (see earlier reference to libvirt,
> virt-manager, etc. :)

Moral of the story ... if you are an enterprise customer on RHEL5 and
need fantastic support from Red Hat, go with Xen.  If you are rolling
your own, and don't like the close kernel dependency between
hosts/guests, then go with kvm.  Hey, if I ever need Xen support, I
might be giving you a call...thanks...
-- 
Kristian Erik Hermansen

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