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NetBSD Adopts NetBSD/xen for Internal Use

Posted by timothy on from the do-not-take-orally dept.

agent dero writes "With NetBSD 2.0, the NetBSD Foundation also released support for a new port, NetBSD/xen. A version of NetBSD meant to run on top of the Xen virtual machine monitor. In this press release the foundation has announced that it is using the port and Xen for much of its internal development, citing security, and ease of use as main reasons for its adoption."

7 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Xen is cool by Usquebaugh · · Score: 4, Funny

    Maybe I'll switch from using Qemu for my kernel sabotage. I would call it kernel hacking but that would indicate some proficiency :-(

  2. BSD dying by kinema · · Score: 3, Funny

    Now multiple BSD instances can die on a single machine, securely.

  3. Re:A Great Leap Backwards by Nimrangul · · Score: 4, Informative

    Looks like you need to read harder: NetBSD/xen can run in both privileged and unprivileged virtual machines under Xen 1.2, and in unprivileged virtual machines under Xen 2.0. Perhaps that is the why of it?

    --
    I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
  4. If only we had the WindowsXP port by mnmn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... I could switch between a build world of netbsd, and Counter Strike real fast!!!.

    That makes me wonder if I can share one nic between the OSes, or put in two NICs, assign one for each OS.

    Apart from Zen, would be cool to do a complete replace-boot, as in the OS state is frozen and written to harddisk (some laptop bioses do this), and the state of another OS is read... making switching between OSes, as fast as reading the same amount of data as your used up ram.

    Heck I'll just buy another machine and use a KVM switch.

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
    1. Re:If only we had the WindowsXP port by LizardKing · · Score: 2, Insightful

      My understanding of Xen is that NetBSD is one of several operating systems that can run as the primary or "monitor" OS within Xen. Other operating systems (including Windows and Linux) can then be run as secondary OS'es. A research version of Windows could run as the primary / monitor OS, but it is not readily available.

      I should add that I've not actually tried Xen yet, but if my understanding of Xen is correct then I'm keen to try it. I'd ideally like to have NetBSD as the primary OS, and Linux as a secondary to test the portability of server side C++ code I'm writing.

  5. Re:Erm by vulcan_pupil · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Xen has been benchmarked to outperform VMWare in certain applications. In addition, Xen allows you to migrate a domain (instance of client OS) to another machine running Xen, live over the network.

    Although, another difference is that the OS must be ported to run on Xen. But Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD have been ported.

  6. Re:Erm by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 3, Informative

    VMWare is a hardware virtualization layer. It exports what appears to be (or damn close to it) a full machine to the OS.
    Xen can be thought of as a micro-micro (nano?) kernel. it exports a minimalist subset, just enough to virtualize the hardware, absolutely nothing more. as such it's not that hard to "port" your OS to run on this kernel, but there is work to be done,