Re: [Xen-users] Installing modules - switch to Vmware ?

["Christopher G. Stach II" <cgs@xxxxxxxxx>]

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?

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.

-- 
Christopher G. Stach II


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