Trying out Xen
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@Dashrender said:
Please remind where the difference between Xen and XenServer - I take it Citrix still owns XenServer - but what? it's free now?
Xen is a "kernel" for a hypervisor. XenServer is a full hypervisor distro. Xen can't stand on its own, it needs to be assembled. Xen is analogous to Linux or Asterisk, a building block of something bigger. XenServer is analogous to CentOS or FreePBX, it is a full product.
Citrix does own XenServer by name, but the code was open sourced (there was almost nothing that Citrix owned anyway) and is now managed by the Linux Foundation who also makes XCP (the non-Citrix version of XenServer) and Xen itself.
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@scottalanmiller I have a test XenServer up and running. Thanks again!
(P.S. to anyone who wants to try. Don't use a CentOS 6.7 iso for a VM. I used it just because I had it from trying to install Xen. The networking will not work and you will attempt to fix it for about 3 hours. Then begin to question yourself, because you can't seem to figure out a simple networking interface in XenCenter. Then you will install Ubuntu and it will work fine.)
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I'm really shocked that CentOS does not work. We do this all the time and it has always "just worked" right out of the "box".
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@scottalanmiller said:
I'm really shocked that CentOS does not work. We do this all the time and it has always "just worked" right out of the "box".
I haven't tried 7. I saw someone else had an issue with 6.x so I figured I'd try a different iso.
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We've been using a lot of CentOS 6 over the years.
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@scottalanmiller said:
We've been using a lot of CentOS 6 over the years.
I probably screwed something up. I'll try tomorrow just for fun.
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Where you trying PV or HVM?
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@scottalanmiller said:
Where you trying PV or HVM?
Truthfully I don't know. I didn't see an option for either. I clicked on New VM, then selected CentOS 6 from the template list, gave it a name, picked my ISO from the NFS, picked the server, set cpu/memory, set storage, set network, and then finished.
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It's always HVM by default but some templates might go to PV.
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@scottalanmiller What do you recommend for backups? I'm only going to have a couple VMs running. Should I just rsync everything on each?
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@johnhooks said:
@scottalanmiller What do you recommend for backups? I'm only going to have a couple VMs running. Should I just rsync everything on each?
You can do that. If you are going to rsync the contents of the VMs, that's fine. If you want to rsync the entire VM you need to either shut it down or snap it first. There is a script that people use that can do backups for XenServer too, that is free. @DustinB3403 should have a link to that as he is using it.
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NAUBackup is a great script for Xen. GitHub Link
Anyways just wget into /patcher and it can be run right from there with just some small adjustments to the file paths.
When I started using it I even made some recommendations to the comments to clear up what was being said. If you have questions don't hesitate to ask.
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Oh just as a heads up I did a direct install of Xen, no overhead for another OS, directly into a dedicated (cheapo) hard drive. If I really wanted I could have used an 8GB Thumb drive to run the OS on.
Keep all of your local storage for storage.
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@DustinB3403 said:
Oh just as a heads up I did a direct install of Xen, no overhead for another OS, directly into a dedicated (cheapo) hard drive. If I really wanted I could have used an 8GB Thumb drive to run the OS on.
What do you mean. Xen can't run that way. How did you download it? It has to have a Dom0 with either Linux or NetBSD in it to work.
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XenServer has a Live CD that you can install directly to a dedicated drive. Which builds Dom0, Dom0 the resides on that disk as an 8GB partition.
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@DustinB3403 said:
XenServer has a Live CD that you can install directly to a dedicated drive. Which builds Dom0, Dom0 the resides on that disk as an 8GB partition.
Right, but XenServer installs CentOS 6. You aren't saving anything. It's no different than installing Xen with OpenSuse or Ubuntu, just easier because XenServer packages CentOS and Xen up together for you to do the install all at once. You still have the same OS overhead as any other Xen installation method.
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We got it from : http://xenserver.org/overview-xenserver-open-source-virtualization/download.html and installed directly to a dedicated drive that we threw into out VM Host
We specifically didn't want to use a Thumb drive to run the Distro.
But thinking about it afterwards it would probably be easier to make a clone of a Thumb Drive ISO for backup purposes.
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I'm not saying that XenServer isn't a good idea, it is what I usually recommend because it is fully packaged and tuned for exactly that one purpose and everything is set up for you right out of the gate. It is almost a no brainer. But very important to understand what it is doing and that it is not lighter or anything.
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@DustinB3403 said:
We specifically didn't want to use a Thumb drive to run the Distro.
But thinking about it afterwards it would probably be easier to make a clone of a Thumb Drive ISO for backup purposes.
Yes, thumb drive is "always" better. That's just good practice for a hypervisor. No benefits to using a hard drive. The only reason that XenServer is often put on spinning rust is because it does not have a native "install to thumb drive" option and takes some extra effort, unlike ESXi which takes literally zero effort to have do that.
