Re: [Xen-users] Choosing O/S for dom0 host with xen 3.2 - best option?

[Mark Williamson <mark.williamson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I (just) posted something similar to this on the fedora-xen list so
> apologies if some of you see it twice.
>
> I'm about to commission a new dom0 host to host multiple dom0 instances
> for testing purposes. I'm currently trying to decide what platform to
> use. I've previously used FC6 and CentOS5 as Dom0 hosts.
>
> I'd like to be able to use Xen 3.2, and I see RPMS are available from
> xen.org for CentOS5.
>
> My current questions:
>
> Do I need to do anything other than install the xen 3.2 RPMS on my
> CentOS 5.1 system? i.e. Do I need to build a new initrd or anything, or
> does the xen RPM install take care of that?

The RPM will take care of that.

> Do I continue to use the CentOS kernel-xen?

You could do (well, you can use the Xen kernel from Centos 5.1 but not the one 
from Centos 5.0).

Be warned though, the Citrix / XenSource RPMs aren't intended to be as well 
integrated as your distro's RPMs, nor will they receive regular security and 
bug patching.  They're billed as a base for distributors to work from or for 
early adopters to play with.

> Will tools like virt-install work the same with xen 3.2 as with xen 3.1?

I can't persuade yum to let me uninstall CentOS 5.1's Xen 3.1 without it 
removing virt-install :-(  I don't know if you can install the Citrix / 
XenSource RPMs alongside the CentOS ones ... ?

> Are any other distros more suitable for use with xen 3.2? I prefer
> Redhat/CentOS/Fedora flavours as that's what I'm most comfortable with,
> but I'm not averse to try something else if it is more appropriate.

I do all my Xen development work on CentOS 5.1 these days.  That said, I 
generally try to run CentOS's own Xen on the host so I haven't tried 3.2 on 
there.

Out of interest, is there something specific you must have in Xen 3.2?  Xen 
3.1 turned out to be quite a good release AFAIK and supported most things 
quite nicely.  I generally think my CentOS Xen experience has more Zen to it 
if I stick with the packages they provided ;-)

Cheers,
Mark

-- 
Push Me Pull You - Distributed SCM tool (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~maw48/pmpu/)

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