[CentOS-virt] Should I switch and if so what is the procedure

[Rich]

Since the Xen and Linux kernel people have finally made peace and Xen is
going to be included with the kernel, should I keep using the Xen virtual
server with Centos or should I switch to KVM?  I am running Centos 5.7 now.
I guess the real question is can I still use Xen with Centos 6?
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Re: [CentOS-virt] Should I switch and if so what is the procedure

[Manuel Wolfshant]

On 10/05/2011 05:55 PM, Rich wrote:
> Since the Xen and Linux kernel people have finally made peace and Xen 
> is going to be included with the kernel, should I keep using the Xen 
> virtual server with Centos or should I switch to KVM?  I am running 
> Centos 5.7 now.
> I guess the real question is can I still use Xen with Centos 6?
I doubt that xen will be included as an option for RHEL 6 any time soon. 
So neither will it be for CentOS 6.
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Re: [CentOS-virt] Should I switch and if so what is the procedure

[Rich]

How hard is it to switch from Xen to KVM?

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Manuel Wolfshant
wrote:

> On 10/05/2011 05:55 PM, Rich wrote:
> > Since the Xen and Linux kernel people have finally made peace and Xen
> > is going to be included with the kernel, should I keep using the Xen
> > virtual server with Centos or should I switch to KVM?  I am running
> > Centos 5.7 now.
> > I guess the real question is can I still use Xen with Centos 6?
> I doubt that xen will be included as an option for RHEL 6 any time soon.
> So neither will it be for CentOS 6.
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Re: [CentOS-virt] Should I switch and if so what is the procedure

[Nehemiah]

you recreate the VIM and export the disks. 

-- 
Nehemiah I. Dacres
Saint Louis University: Advanced Technology Group
Linux System Administrator 

Sent with Sparrow (http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/?sig)

On Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 10:06 AM, Rich wrote:

> How hard is it to switch from Xen to KVM?
> 
> On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Manuel Wolfshant  (mailto:wo...@nobugconsulting.ro)> wrote:
> > On 10/05/2011 05:55 PM, Rich wrote:
> > > Since the Xen and Linux kernel people have finally made peace and Xen
> > > is going to be included with the kernel, should I keep using the Xen
> > > virtual server with Centos or should I switch to KVM? I am running
> > > Centos 5.7 now.
> > > I guess the real question is can I still use Xen with Centos 6?
> > I doubt that xen will be included as an option for RHEL 6 any time soon.
> >  So neither will it be for CentOS 6.
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Re: [CentOS-virt] Should I switch and if so what is the procedure

[Manuel Wolfshant]

On 10/05/2011 06:06 PM, Rich wrote:
> How hard is it to switch from Xen to KVM?
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6-Beta/html/Virtualization_Getting_Started_Guide/


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Re: [CentOS-virt] Should I switch and if so what is the procedure

[Eric Searcy]

On 10/5/11 8:02 AM, Manuel Wolfshant wrote:
> I doubt that xen will be included as an option for RHEL 6 any time soon. 
> So neither will it be for CentOS 6.

not impossible that CentOS could have it as a value-add:
http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-virt/2011-July/002554.html

I'm still running dom0 on CentOS 5 and am switching VMs and bare-metal
non-Xen servers to 6.  I figure I have enough time to wait to see what
happens in 6.x (or 7?) before I will start worrying about 5 EOL.  So
long as I have hardware support I guess.

Eric
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Re: [CentOS-virt] Should I switch and if so what is the procedure

[Ed Heron]

On Wed, 2011-10-05 at 10:55 -0400, Rich wrote:
> Since the Xen and Linux kernel people have finally made peace and Xen
> is going to be included with the kernel, should I keep using the Xen
> virtual server with Centos or should I switch to KVM?  I am running
> Centos 5.7 now.
> I guess the real question is can I still use Xen with Centos 6?

  The support end of life for CentOS 5 is listed as March 31, 2014
(http://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/General#head-fe8a0be91ee3e7dea812e8694491e1dde5b75e6d).
  There isn't any pressure, at this point, to convert your VM hosts to CentOS 6 
unless there is some feature you require.

  I doubt RH will add XEN support to RHEL 6.  They don't like to add
functionality to an existing product.  We can hope they bring XEN back
in RHEL 7.

  There was some discussion about producing RPMs to add XEN support into
CentOS 6, but I haven't seen any status updates, recently.


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Re: [CentOS-virt] Should I switch and if so what is the procedure

[Peter Peltonen]

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 7:16 PM, Ed Heron  wrote:
>  There was some discussion about producing RPMs to add XEN support into
> CentOS 6, but I haven't seen any status updates, recently.

I am succesfully using the dom0 EL6 kernel from:
http://xenbits.xen.org/people/mayoung/testing/x86_64/

and xen4 packages for EL6 by provided by this repositry:
http://xenbits.xen.org/people/mayoung/EL6.xen/

It would be great to get at least the dom0 kernel in the centosplus repo...

Regards,
Peter
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Re: [CentOS-virt] Should I switch and if so what is the procedure

[Dennis Jacobfeuerborn]

On 10/05/2011 06:16 PM, Ed Heron wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2011-10-05 at 10:55 -0400, Rich wrote:
>> Since the Xen and Linux kernel people have finally made peace and Xen
>> is going to be included with the kernel, should I keep using the Xen
>> virtual server with Centos or should I switch to KVM?  I am running
>> Centos 5.7 now.
>> I guess the real question is can I still use Xen with Centos 6?
>
>The support end of life for CentOS 5 is listed as March 31, 2014
> (http://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/General#head-fe8a0be91ee3e7dea812e8694491e1dde5b75e6d).
>   There isn't any pressure, at this point, to convert your VM hosts to CentOS 
> 6 unless there is some feature you require.
>
>I doubt RH will add XEN support to RHEL 6.  They don't like to add
> functionality to an existing product.  We can hope they bring XEN back
> in RHEL 7.

While Xen will probably return in RHEL 7 simply because it is part of the 
upstream kernel now I doubt it will be officially supported by Red Hat.
Between buying Qumranet (http://www.redhat.com/promo/qumranet/) and now 
Gluster (https://www.redhat.com/promo/storage/) it is clear that Red Hat 
aims to become a provider of a complete independent virtualization stack 
and is unlikely to support "competing" products directly.

The question is what does Xen offer that KVM cannot provide? Looking at the 
slides of the KVM Forum 2011 (http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/KVM_Forum_2011) 
there seem to be many interesting improvements in the pipeline so at some 
point the question really is why hold on to Xen at all when there is not 
real reason to?

Regards,
   Dennis

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Re: [CentOS-virt] Should I switch and if so what is the procedure

[Rich]

Its seems that I should switch then.  I have 2 servers using Xen.  What is
the procedure to conver them? Is there procedure I should use. I have to use
the same boxes I can not export vm's.

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 7:46 PM, Dennis Jacobfeuerborn  wrote:

> On 10/05/2011 06:16 PM, Ed Heron wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 2011-10-05 at 10:55 -0400, Rich wrote:
> >> Since the Xen and Linux kernel people have finally made peace and Xen
> >> is going to be included with the kernel, should I keep using the Xen
> >> virtual server with Centos or should I switch to KVM?  I am running
> >> Centos 5.7 now.
> >> I guess the real question is can I still use Xen with Centos 6?
> >
> >The support end of life for CentOS 5 is listed as March 31, 2014
> > (
> http://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/General#head-fe8a0be91ee3e7dea812e8694491e1dde5b75e6d).
>  There isn't any pressure, at this point, to convert your VM hosts to CentOS
> 6 unless there is some feature you require.
> >
> >I doubt RH will add XEN support to RHEL 6.  They don't like to add
> > functionality to an existing product.  We can hope they bring XEN back
> > in RHEL 7.
>
> While Xen will probably return in RHEL 7 simply because it is part of the
> upstream kernel now I doubt it will be officially supported by Red Hat.
> Between buying Qumranet (http://www.redhat.com/promo/qumranet/) and now
> Gluster (https://www.redhat.com/promo/storage/) it is clear that Red Hat
> aims to become a provider of a complete independent virtualization stack
> and is unlikely to support "competing" products directly.
>
> The question is what does Xen offer that KVM cannot provide? Looking at the
> slides of the KVM Forum 2011 (http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/KVM_Forum_2011
> )
> there seem to be many interesting improvements in the pipeline so at some
> point the question really is why hold on to Xen at all when there is not
> real reason to?
>
> Regards,
>Dennis
>
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Re: [CentOS-virt] Should I switch and if so what is the procedure

[Peter Hopfgartner]

On 10/06/2011 12:58 PM, Rich wrote:
Its seems that I should switch then.  I have 2 servers using Xen.  
What is the procedure to conver them? Is there procedure I should use. 
I have to use the same boxes I can not export vm's.



I've used the following links to migrate our office servers:

http://www.gloudemans.info/migrate-paravirtualized-xen-to-kvm-under-rhel/

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/troubleshooting-kvm-virtualization-problem-with-log-files/

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/rhel-linux-kvm-virtualization-bridged-networking-with-libvirt/

In any case, be cautious, make backups and don't do this at 3:00 AM.

Peter


On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 7:46 PM, Dennis Jacobfeuerborn 
mailto:denni...@conversis.de>> wrote:


On 10/05/2011 06:16 PM, Ed Heron wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2011-10-05 at 10:55 -0400, Rich wrote:
>> Since the Xen and Linux kernel people have finally made peace
and Xen
>> is going to be included with the kernel, should I keep using
the Xen
>> virtual server with Centos or should I switch to KVM?  I am running
>> Centos 5.7 now.
>> I guess the real question is can I still use Xen with Centos 6?
>
>The support end of life for CentOS 5 is listed as March 31, 2014
>

(http://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/General#head-fe8a0be91ee3e7dea812e8694491e1dde5b75e6d).
 There isn't any pressure, at this point, to convert your VM hosts
to CentOS 6 unless there is some feature you require.
>
>I doubt RH will add XEN support to RHEL 6.  They don't like
to add
> functionality to an existing product.  We can hope they bring
XEN back
> in RHEL 7.

While Xen will probably return in RHEL 7 simply because it is part
of the
upstream kernel now I doubt it will be officially supported by Red
Hat.
Between buying Qumranet (http://www.redhat.com/promo/qumranet/)
and now
Gluster (https://www.redhat.com/promo/storage/) it is clear that
Red Hat
aims to become a provider of a complete independent virtualization
stack
and is unlikely to support "competing" products directly.

The question is what does Xen offer that KVM cannot provide?
Looking at the
slides of the KVM Forum 2011
(http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/KVM_Forum_2011)
there seem to be many interesting improvements in the pipeline so
at some
point the question really is why hold on to Xen at all when there
is not
real reason to?

Regards,
  Dennis

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Re: [CentOS-virt] Should I switch and if so what is the procedure

[Jerry Amundson]

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 6:46 PM, Dennis Jacobfeuerborn  wrote:

> On 10/05/2011 06:16 PM, Ed Heron wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 2011-10-05 at 10:55 -0400, Rich wrote:
> >> Since the Xen and Linux kernel people have finally made peace and Xen
> >> is going to be included with the kernel, should I keep using the Xen
> >> virtual server with Centos or should I switch to KVM?  I am running
> >> Centos 5.7 now.
> >> I guess the real question is can I still use Xen with Centos 6?
> >
> >The support end of life for CentOS 5 is listed as March 31, 2014
> > (
> http://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/General#head-fe8a0be91ee3e7dea812e8694491e1dde5b75e6d).
>  There isn't any pressure, at this point, to convert your VM hosts to CentOS
> 6 unless there is some feature you require.
> >
> >I doubt RH will add XEN support to RHEL 6.  They don't like to add
> > functionality to an existing product.  We can hope they bring XEN back
> > in RHEL 7.
>
> While Xen will probably return in RHEL 7 simply because it is part of the
> upstream kernel now I doubt it will be officially supported by Red Hat.
> Between buying Qumranet (http://www.redhat.com/promo/qumranet/) and now
> Gluster (https://www.redhat.com/promo/storage/) it is clear that Red Hat
> aims to become a provider of a complete independent virtualization stack
> and is unlikely to support "competing" products directly.
>
> The question is what does Xen offer that KVM cannot provide? Looking at the
> slides of the KVM Forum 2011 (http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/KVM_Forum_2011
> )
> there seem to be many interesting improvements in the pipeline so at some
> point the question really is why hold on to Xen at all when there is not
> real reason to?
>

The majority of hardware in my office server room, and both my home servers,
are not HVM-capable, so they are not able to run KVM.

Of course, as time goes on, this use case would eventually go away as well.
However, I'll probably end up staying with Xen as long as possible, if for
no other reason than I just like it better.

jerry
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Re: [CentOS-virt] Should I switch and if so what is the procedure

[Ed Heron]

On Thu, 2011-10-06 at 01:46 +0200, Dennis Jacobfeuerborn wrote:
> ...
> The question is what does Xen offer that KVM cannot provide? Looking at the 
> slides of the KVM Forum 2011 (http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/KVM_Forum_2011) 
> there seem to be many interesting improvements in the pipeline so at some 
> point the question really is why hold on to Xen at all when there is not 
> real reason to?
> ...

  For me, it isn't "why hang onto Xen?", it's "why convert my 18
virtualization servers?"  Most of my servers are remote.  I have 8
physical locations.  Each location has a spare server for redundancy.
To change to anything else, I'd need a compelling reason as the time and
effort and, potentially, travel expenses would be significant.

  Looking at scheduled CentOS 5 EOL, I can get other things done before
having to tackle major upgrades.  When I do start working on my next
iteration of my system design, I'll be considering all hypervisors.


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Re: [CentOS-virt] Should I switch and if so what is the procedure

[Grant McWilliams]

On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 8:03 AM, Ed Heron  wrote:

> On Thu, 2011-10-06 at 01:46 +0200, Dennis Jacobfeuerborn wrote:
> > ...
> > The question is what does Xen offer that KVM cannot provide? Looking at
> the
> > slides of the KVM Forum 2011 (
> http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/KVM_Forum_2011)
> > there seem to be many interesting improvements in the pipeline so at some
> > point the question really is why hold on to Xen at all when there is not
> > real reason to?
> > ...
>
>  For me, it isn't "why hang onto Xen?", it's "why convert my 18
> virtualization servers?"  Most of my servers are remote.  I have 8
> physical locations.  Each location has a spare server for redundancy.
> To change to anything else, I'd need a compelling reason as the time and
> effort and, potentially, travel expenses would be significant.
>
>  Looking at scheduled CentOS 5 EOL, I can get other things done before
> having to tackle major upgrades.  When I do start working on my next
> iteration of my system design, I'll be considering all hypervisors.
>
>
And in addition to that if it isn't broken CentOS 5.7 just came out so
it's not like it's an old unsupported distribution and I bet that isn't the
last update that Redhat will do. I just moved some of my VMs to XCP as a
test which is using the exact same version of the Xen hypervisor that I was
running before. In my opinion the Hypervisor isn't really that important
anymore. What's more important is the management tools for them. With the
Cloud.com acquisition by Citrix, OpenStack and more I think one would spend
more time thinking of these tools than which hypervisor to use.

Another point would be that the Dom0 doesn't really matter that much. It's
not like you'll ever change it outside of adding security patches. By desgin
the Dom0 just sits there and manages DomU's. If anything the DomU OS is more
important.

Grant McWilliams
http://grantmcwilliams.com/

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use
Windows."
Now they have two problems.
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