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Xen, kernel modules and code contributions

Red Hat went out public to say loudly about Xen and their plans about that. There is a nice virtualization introduction demo (you need Flash to see it) on their openvirtualization.com site. I have just noticed that if you change the word "Xen" to "OpenVZ", and remove anything concerning "hypervisor", it would be quite an accurate description of what OpenVZ is and what it can do for you. So I welcome everybody to see that demo.

Still, Xen is a bit different. Say, you can not load kernel modules from inside an OpenVZ VPS, or use different kernels for diffrerent VPSs on the same box — but this is possible with Xen.

That leads to the question: what if you need some special kernel module in OpenVZ? The answer is: if it is a device driver and you want to use that device from within one VPS, it is possible (look for '--devnodes' and '--netdev_add' in vzctl man page). If you want to use some special stuff like, say, iptables module, from within a VPS — such module needs to be "virtualized" first (many iptables modules are already virtualized, so you can actually use them from a VPS).

By the way, speaking of that, recently Jason Stubbs, a Gentoo developer, send us a patch to virtualize ipt_REDIRECT kernel module. His work will appear soon in the kernel and vzctl we will release next week. Nice job, Jason!

Comments

k001
Mar. 21st, 2006 02:57 pm (UTC)
Re: Apples and Oranges of Xen and OpenVZ
Yes indeed, if you need to run different kernels, different operating systems on a single box, Xen (or VMware, for that matter) is a way to go.

Still, does anybody use Solaris and Linux on the same box in a production environment? For testing - yes. For fun - yes. For real serious work - I doubt it.

According to farm people who grow apples, it is possible to put a branch from the apple tree and implant it to a peach tree (and vise versa). While this is an interesting thing to do, the apples you buy were grown on apple trees.

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