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Red Hat Wants Xen In Linux Kernel
DIY News writes "Red Hat is aggressively pushing to get Xen virtualization technology included in the Linux kernel as quickly as possible. This move comes as Microsoft is pushing its own virtualization products and recently relaxed some of its licensing requirements around Windows Server 2003 to facilitate more pervasive adoption and use of those technologies."
What exactly does "virtualization technology included in the Linux kernel" means?
That you can run virtual machines with that kernel? that that kernel can be hosted into a virtual machine?
Or that you can install parallel kernels and run part of the ELF binaries on the other machine?..
gtkaml.org
Xen isn't all that hard, you just need some jump boots and a particle weapon of some sort.
Well, Xen is free, and Intel/AMD hardware solutions are comming soon, which will allow Xen to run Windows unmodified. So, once everyone is upgraded to the new CPU's, virtualization will become a basic standard feature for everyone. MS can compete by giving their solution away for free, but either way, it doesn't get better than free for the consumer.
Not only do they get the ability to knock the shit out of Microsoft, by taking away the base platform from them, they also get to try to get some market share from VMWare.
Imagine if you would the ability to use Xen for unlimited operating systems, no licensing cost of the base OS, thinking about it, I would prefer to be in Microsoft's shoes as opposed to VMWare's. Only difference is that Xen when compared to VMWare is a very immature platform and no IT manager is going to take Xen over VMWare just yet (Unless cost is a BIG factor).
I would have to say that this is still very cool, with all the new Virtualization options come out in the new cores shortly and if they can get to market before Microsoft, this is a great way to pick up some customers. Kudos to RedHat and IBM and Intel and everyone else for making this happen.
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
"My goal is to get this done in the most collaborative way possible with anyone in the community who wants to participate," Stevens said, adding that Red Hat is committed to putting on this project enough of its staff who have the technical knowledge necessary to get the work done.
Perhaps it's only me, but this doesn't sound aggressive; this sounds friendly and cooperative.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
Why don't they fork? Or just build and rpm their own kernel, like they did with GCC 2.96?
The more advanced the technology, the more open it is to primitive attack
The irony is that Microsoft provided some of the funding for Xen (probably for the early experimental Xenised versions of Windows XP). Yes - Microsoft does fund GPLd projects. Often in a company that big, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, so whilst Gates/Balmer spout off about how evil open source is, another part of MS is funding it (or even releasing it on Sourceforge).
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
The other problem here is there are other VM's out there and they all have different requirements for kernel modifications so talk about mess.
The major underlying problem there is Intel and AMD just don't get it. They put in some rather pathetic and lame support for virtualization and think they're all done with it. They have this Not Invented Here attitude that has kept them ignorant of virtualization technology that has been around for decades and doesn't have as much of these problems.
The anti Redhat Linux part of me is saying Do not cave into the demands of Redhat because they are becoming as bad as Microsoft with pushing Linux to their own sinister goals. But then the sane part of me says " If the technology is awesome it should be in the standard kernel."
And then the crazy part of me says. "Heh, I can compile modules for the Xbox controller and other weird hardware into the kernel. Maybe useful technology should be in the kernel =]
but then again. I just might have to many voices in my head
*hmmm*
Must remember to patent the idea of trojan/virus that uses visualisation to run a spam/DOS server
in a Windows environment...
Rubs hands with glee as he tries to sell the idea on IRC.
Acid House saves Souls
Sun can do this now with Solaris 10. Virtualization is a cool technology, and everyone in this space seems to be heading there.
-- Bryan
While Xen appears as a neat package, why choose Xen instead of vservers?
The hardware cost of running multiple copies of the same OS with vservers is smaller than Xen - there is one and only one copy of glibc in memory, one and only scheduler, and so on.
Mandriva Linux 2006 includes xen0 and xenU-enabled kernels and the Xen supervisor utilities package. The Community version of Mandriva 2006 can be downloaded from many Linux mirror sites.
I'm running such a box now with a total of three Linux domains (one host domain and two guest)... much easier than manually patching everything.
Virtualization technology is a very good thing. It allows you to use multiple operating systems at once, without fights for hardware control (which is why VMWare doesn't do it like this). But, if it's doable in hardware, it's doable in OS level software. Why didn't anybody do it then?
Put differently, how are AMD and Intel going to make it work? Since hardware doesn't like multiple masters (try a PS2 mouse with 4-5 byte protocol, it completely freaks out with a KVM switch), it's going to go haywire if you have multiple masters. Unless, of course, you don't. If all is virtual, make the entire computer virtual and let the OS meddle in the virtual space that's left after that. Include drivers for anything you like in the virtualizer core and let that start up the "OS".
The OS can then not use all features of the hardware, but only those given out by the virtualizer core. There's no escaping it, since it's the replacement for your BIOS. Combine that with the concept of Trusted (Treacherous) Computing and mix in a bit of Fritz chip and BIOS replacement Intel is pushing (as well), what do you get?
A computer with only drivers and everything (yes, EVERYTHING) in a checkable state, in which your OS doesn't even control the computer anymore, but the virtualizer. You don't want to change that one, since it renders your computer unusable. You do want to change that, since it renders your computer unusable. The state in which you control anything on your computer is becoming a paradox.
*puts on tinfoil hat, goes back within cage of faraday in radio-silent zone*
It basically lets you run multiple instances of the OS concurrently, where each instance thinks it's the only one running on the computer, right?
But then what do you when two or more OS instances want to monkey around with hardware that has state? For example, if one OS wants the screen resolution to be 640x480, and another OS wants the screen resolution to be 1024x768, you can't very well keep switching the screen between those two resolutions every time you change which OS is getting CPU time. Or another example is with printing: you can't very well interleave the print data streams from two OS's to the printer without hosing the print jobs.
BLACKADDER: Baldrick, do you know what irony is?
BALDRICK: Yeah, it's like tinny or brassy, only it's made of iron.
RTFA
"Part of the Red Hat emerging technology team's efforts will be to drive the Xen virtualization technologies as part of the Linux kernel rather than as part of a sidebar project, as is currently the case, Stevens said."
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
These guys(Xen) have all these companies donating money to them, but have been beaten to kernel inclusion by UML. UML is basically a two man project, developed by Jeff Dike and Paolo Giarrusso (aka Blaisorblade). Xen may be multi platform and all, but thus far UML is easier to handle and does not require the host to run a patched kernel (you could use a patched kernel, but the newest development Skas0 does not need it).
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
I know everyone complains about how MS lacks innovation, but this is a good example of BUSINESS innovation. Virtualization isn't new. I've used it before, seen it before. But MS bought an existing product, then wrapped it up nice and pretty and easy, and presented it as a solution to a major problem. And it is getting widely adopted. My office uses virtual servers constantly to simulate production environments for development: it saves time, money, and effort.
I never even considered virtualization of servers or development environments until I learned about MS Virtual PC and MS Virtual Server. Norton Ghost or dd dumps were all that I knew. So Microsoft is doing something right, and they will be perceived as the innovator and the winner here. They will be selling that you can virtualize servers to save time and money, and companies will buy it. They won't even know that this originated in the *nix world.
I look forward to seeing what the next leap in this technology is. I suspect we are just beginning to see some novel uses for it.
http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/c omparative.html
This sig kills fascists.
The Slashdot summary is a bit misleading. What the article says is that Andrew Morton has been expecting a kernel submission for Xen for quite some time now but a) has yet to receive it, and b) needs to go through the usual process with other "stakeholders" before any incorporation. Later the article quotes the Xen folks themselves who point out that "feature creep" and the need to generally get things really solid and stable has made everything take a little longer.
What the article actually seems to be saying - it uses the word "agressive" a lot as if this was some kind of virtue - is that Red Hat has a new senior honcho who'd like to make his mark. The issue of incorporating virtualization technologies into the Linux kernel is taken as a given by all parties. Which is hardly news. Chalk one up to the Red Hat marketing department for a nicely planted "news" story about their increased investment in the area (new hires, etc.), perhaps.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
In desiring to put Xen in the kernel, they have already failed.
Multiple OSes at once? [..] I never got the whole concept of virtual servers
Its mainly an enterprise play.
If you're an old-timer UNIX admin, you may have difficulty understanding the point of server virtualization (i.e. multiple OS instances). In UNIXland, it has been normal and customary for several completely unrelated applications to run under the same OS instance, together servicing thousands of users. That never worked well in Windowsland. That being said, it didn't stop manufacturers from making staggering improvements in performace and capabilities of Intel servers. Companies grew to expect single Intel boxes to perform at the levels of large UNIX servers. The only way to achieve that in recent years has been to use industrial strength virtualization technology (basically, ESX). The boxes are beefier than ever, and ESX isn't cheap, but it works wonders.
For $50k, you can run 50 VMware guests on one very beefy box (not counting SAN), but you'd want a second for failover. For $75k, you can run about 100 guests on 14 blades in 7U (again, not counting SAN) and have the guests automatically migrate to the blades most able to run their workload at that moment in time. Ask a blade to come down for maintenance, and all the guests scatter to other blades before the blade powers off. Replaced a dead blade with a blank? Your systems management policies detect the new blank and automatically install ESX on it so guests can migrate back and evenly spread out the load.
Sounds crazy, I know, but that's a taste of what we're doing in the enteprise space these days.
Intelligent Life on Earth
Red Hat has been shipping Xen enabled kernels for months now in Fedora and I believe they are available for RHEL too. They have had quite a few people dedicated to working on Xen for some time, and that is a *good* thing . Virtualization is the future, and its good that a big company like Red Hat is pushing it further. Xen and SELinux are two killer technologies that Red Hat has really made viable, so kudos to them for keeping open source on the forefront of innovative (or at least uncommon, but much needed) technologies. For a truncated list of other cool technologies Red Hat is pushing in OSS, check out the Fedora projects page, you'll see virtualization, and SELinux in addition to the directory server, stateless linux, and system tap (our answer to Solaris' dtrace, granted it still is under heavy development and is far from ready for prime time)
Regards,
Steve
There are a few problems with Xen. First, it's i386 only. Second (and this is the biggest problem IMO) - Xen is venture-backed, and seems to be extremely eager to show their investors a return. Nothing wrong with that, but it's important to consider the motivation, and the consequence of a funding pull back. If XenSource does not turn out to be a great business, then will Xen still be developed and maintained? Why not wait a little bit, in the open source world quality over quantity matters and time pressure should not influence development.
Also, there is another project that I plug every chance I get - Linux Vserver. Unlike Xen, this is a purely volunteer effort, and is very innovative and attemtps to solve a difficult issue. Unlike Xen, these guys actually do not want to be in the mainline for now, becuase they think it will slow down development. Because Linux VServer is taking a different approach to virtualization (better known as separation, which was pioneered by FreeBSD jails and is also now supported in Solaris), the end result is cross-platform, i.e. runs on any architecture that Linux runs on.
Now in the past whenever I posted about Linux VServer a lot of folks said that Xen allows you to run multiple operating systems and that that is why it is so useful. I think that in reality running multiple OS's isn't all that valuable - the only case where it may be very useful is software development, but that's a tiny fraction of the Linux users. We've been using Linux VServer for hosting, and we are absolutely convinced that this is the right solution - for using Xen for example would introduce all kinds of problems (starting with resource bloat).
Yet unfortunately the OSS world has become PR driven lately. Very few people are technically capable of looking at things based on its merits and just go after the things that have the most buzz, not realizing that the buzz is artificially generated.
Why is it that you consider an all-volunteer effort inherently more robust? Key volunteers can have life changes (job change, health, etc) that cause their involvement to change. VC projects have the benefit of providing dedicated staff, professional project management, business development and marketing to keep momentum alive.