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[Xen-users] Offer to help on CentOs4-4

To: "Christopher G. Stach II" <cgs@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Xen-users] Offer to help on CentOs4-4
From: Xen Help <steven@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 10:52:58 -0600
Cc: xen-users <xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Christopher G. Stach II wrote:
Xen Help wrote:
Henning Sprang wrote:
On 12/17/06, Xen Help <steven@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi,

Does anyone knows how to have modules installed when compiling and
installing Xen as the README file is incomplete about it.
I cannot simply run make module_install somwhow.
What do you mean with "i cannot run it somehow?" (if nor just the
senetences you wrote after this, which mean, you can run it, but it
doesn't have the effect you where hoping for)
Well what I meant is that the "xen recommended way" to run (or build)
with only one kernel for both dom0 and domU will not boot at all on
CentOs4-4, I spent days on it without any hope of solving the issue with
the list's help only, while I discovered that the compiled dom0 and dumU
version would boot, the only problem remaining is having the right
modules installed in /lib/modules/ for iptables, they do not show up,
see the compared listing.

I cannot get the modules compiled and installed into the right directory.

I believe the iptables modules for latest Xen are not compatible with
CentOs 4-4, maybe with CentOs 4-3.
Is there any published data about Xen compatibility with the distros
versions? I mean they upgrade in each new version Glibc and Gcc so this
seems to be a major consideration to anyone wanting to keep system
updated and secured?

The 2.6.16.29-xen0 version below do not have iptables modules installed.

total 48K
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root 4.0K Dec 17 16:54 2.6.16.29-xen
drwxr-xr-x   8 root root 4.0K Dec 15 11:04 .
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root 4.0K Dec 14 21:31 2.6.16.29-xenU
drwxr-xr-x  11 root root 4.0K Dec 14 21:20 ..
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root 4.0K Dec 14 21:20 2.6.16.29-xen0
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root 4.0K Dec 14 15:36 2.6.9-42.0.3.EL

I will make a few more test tonight. I also tried with the newest
XenExpress, BUT unfortunately I ran into same kind of problems but with
domU and no support at all unless I pay some bucks, which is not what I
think about open source. This is very very bad. On this version we do
not know much about it's original OS, it uses LVM BUT the /dev/hdx
/dev/sdx are formated in Linux 8e instead of LVM which is kind of
strange, also when I copy over existing CentOS4-4 domU which are running
fine on old servers, it gives very little error messages but do not run
and the doc does define what importing a server means (must be the
server config file from what I understand), so I am back to square one.

Because we have production servers we will have to switch to Vmware
which seems better documented if we cannot find a decent solution before
the end of the year,  but it is sad as I was having fun with Xen over
the last 2 years and invested a lot of time in it, it just became
impossible to manage.

I believe part of the problem is the fact that Xen became somehow a
closed source system and that the fact we cannot get it up and running
as one would expect is a planned decision, the lack of information about
the exact requirements is an indication of the direction this project is
going. If nobody can find out which version of libraries are compatible
with any given released version of Xen, you imagine how hard update
decisions becomes, which in my opinion is the very definition of
unmanageable. The bad thing is the considerable waste of time to try to
guess things.

If someone at XenSource is reading, you are about to lose a potential
client as I am about to switch to another virtualization technology
soon. We must have spent over 120 hours since the first broken version
of Xen under FC5 in August and we tried really hard to keep our
production servers afloat with Xen, BUT now we are stuck with old
version we cannot upgrade, which is a lot of stress we would rather not
have. All distro we tried were broken somewhere, as well as all binaries
and compiling from source is just a nightmare of guessing and trial and
error tests. Reading the list we see people have all the same problems.

We had hopes from the newest XenExpress but it did not help (the Java
management interface is cute though) , I feel Xen is becoming more and
more Windozed which is not exactly what we are interested in. I hope Xen
will improve, BUT now for us it is a huge management problem and a
serious technological constraint. Switching to Vmware becomes more and
more of a necessity than a happy choice.


If you're having trouble building kernels and booting Linux distros of
all sorts, you're in over your head.  You're only using the unsupported
code, so of course you wouldn't get much help from XenSource.  What kind
of business model would that be?

You are right, it would not be a viable business model and I always pay for these services, thank you for confirming it. I do not know how they could make money if the open source version would work, that makes a lot of sense.

>
> Your crying for help, not providing useful information, taking
> recommendations, expecting things to work the way you think they work,
> or trying setups that _do_ work as recommendations to test is only
> cluttering the list and frustrating you.  Frankly, I doubt anyone would
> want to bend over backwards to keep the interest of a potential client
> from hell.

Again right, except for the thinking and crying part as I follow the instructions only, remember I made it work for 2 years and now all updates are not working anymore, obviously something has changed, when you rpm -Fvh packages and it breaks things, where are you forced to go when the list cannot or will not help? Are you working for Xensource? Its true your comment about that it would not be a good business model if people could simply install it and work.

>
> Stick with VMware, buy a shrink wrapped commercially supported Xen-based
> product with consultants who will hold your hand while you point and
> click, or stop messing around and cooperate with the community (after
> you learn how to patch, configure, and compile a kernel on your own.)
I never used Vmware, but my IT friends are selling it to me as bad as I use to sell them the beauty of Xen, don't get me wrong (as you seems to have) if I decide to switch it would not be by choice. Is Xen source offering the service you describe above? If yes that might be why I would rather stick to open source.

You cannot be everything and yes I am no kernel expert even if I do and patch all my linux kernels (before Xen) without much problems, I must admit the Xen source one is tricky, but you are here to sell or maybe to help us all, aren't you?

>
> BTW, iptables, CentOS 4.4, and recent domU kernels work _fine_ together.

Thanks again for confirming what I thought I had read somewhere, then you claim it too that it works, so WHY don't you tell us you secret? Better than that, I'll PAY you the XenServer license (I believe it is $99) so you can share your detailed how to to get CentOS 4-4 to boot dom0 and domU until it works flawlessly with iptables. You seems to be an expert so the right initrd ram drives should be easy to do for you as you obviously have the knowledge I am missing, would you share it we me and the list? My offer is valid only until the 25th.

How about that?
Your crying for help, not providing useful information, taking
recommendations, expecting things to work the way you think they work,
or trying setups that _do_ work as recommendations to test is only
cluttering the list and frustrating you.  Frankly, I doubt anyone would
want to bend over backwards to keep the interest of a potential client
from hell.

Stick with VMware, buy a shrink wrapped commercially supported Xen-based
product with consultants who will hold your hand while you point and
click, or stop messing around and cooperate with the community (after
you learn how to patch, configure, and compile a kernel on your own.)

BTW, iptables, CentOS 4.4, and recent domU kernels work _fine_ together.



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