OSS Virtualization options ...

[Norberto Meijome]

On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 02:30:44 -0400
"Marc G. Fournier" <freebsd at hub.org> wrote:

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> Hi ...
> 
>   Right now, I'm using jail to provide VPS solutions, but have found some 
> situations where jail just doesn't work (recently, tried Plesk and due to it 
> trying to 'set hard quota', found that jail+plesk doesn't work too well) ...
> 
>   So, I'm trying to figure out what is available out there that would allow 
> running multiple FreeBSD (or other OS) environments on the same physical server 
> ...
> 
>   I just took a quick look at qemu, which appears easy enough to use, but my 
> feel from a quick scan of:
> 
>       <http://people.freebsd.org/~maho/qemu/qemu.html>
> 
>   is that running multiple networked images night not be particularly easy (or 
> even doable) due to the bridging ... has anyone else tried this?  Is there 
> something else that might prove a better solution?
>

hi Marc,

- where do you want FBSD to run - as the host (or dom0 in Xen), or as the guest? 

If as host, i think Xen may be the closest one to reality, though I think it's not there yet (FBSD is supported for domU). You could use NetBSD though, i think,and of course, linux.

Alternatively, I have been using for a while already this combination of Centos as the host + VMWare Server (which is not OSS, but is free as in beer). FreeBSD will run just fine under it.

Other options which are built upon OSS though proprietary in the sense that the products built are not released (i think, i'd love to be proven wrong!) are Amazon's EC2 (still in beta, i think) and 3Tera's AppLogic - AFAIK both of them are built upon Xen, and only Linux guests are supported at this time.

wrt to QEMU,i don't think is fast enough to make it worth it - i think you'd gain more by moving a bit to the side of freebsd for the host and using other options (linux+ Vmware + freebsd as guest)

I'd very much appreciate if you could keep us / me :) posted on what you find - I shall do the same if I come across anything interesting.

Best regards,
B
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{Beto|Norberto|Numard} Meijome

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