opensolaris port?

opensolaris port?

[Nils Toedtmann]

Hi *,

any plans to port OpenSolaris/x86 to ARCH=xen? AFAIK Solaris Zones
cannot run a different OS, right?

/nils.

Re: opensolaris port?

[Toens Bueker]

Nils Toedtmann <xen-devel@nils.toedtmann.net> wrote:

> any plans to port OpenSolaris/x86 to ARCH=xen? 

Not heard of that, yet.

> AFAIK Solaris Zones cannot run a different OS, right?

Correct. But they integrate quite nice with Solaris
resource management. The very nice Sun Blueprint 
http://www.sun.com/blueprints/0505/819-2679.pdf gives you
an idea.

by
Töns
-- 
There is no safe distance.

Re: opensolaris port?

[Toens Bueker]

I wrote on Wed, Jun 15, 2005 at 10:29:28PM +0200:

> > any plans to port OpenSolaris/x86 to ARCH=xen? 
> 
> Not heard of that, yet.

Corrected - obviously Tim Marsland is already working on it:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/tpm/20050510#the_xen_summit

by
Töns
-- 
There is no safe distance.

Re: opensolaris port?

[Nicholas Lee]

On 6/15/05, Nils Toedtmann <xen-devel@nils.toedtmann.net> wrote:
> Hi *,
> 
> any plans to port OpenSolaris/x86 to ARCH=xen? AFAIK Solaris Zones
> cannot run a different OS, right?

http://blogs.sun.com/roller/comments/tpm/Weblog/the_xen_summit

" Anyhow, we've been looking at Xen for about a year now, and recently
a few of us have been working on a prototype port of Solaris to Xen on
the x86 architecture. We're planning to make it work on x64 machines
where we can exploit the new hardware virtualization technology as it
becomes available. "

Nicholas

Re: opensolaris port?

[Mark Williamson]

> any plans to port OpenSolaris/x86 to ARCH=xen? AFAIK Solaris Zones
> cannot run a different OS, right?

They can't run an OS kernel, although I think there's a project to port BSD 
userland (?) to run in a zone.

I think the two approaches are complimentary - for different levels of 
isolation / convenience / migratability you choose the appropriate 
virtualisation technique.

Another advantage of a Solaris Xen port is that you get the full driver 
support of Linux, whilst being able to run Solaris at near-native speeds.

Cheers,
Mark

Re: opensolaris port?

[Nils Toedtmann]

Am Donnerstag, den 16.06.2005, 00:52 +0100 schrieb Mark Williamson:
> > any plans to port OpenSolaris/x86 to ARCH=xen? AFAIK Solaris Zones
> > cannot run a different OS, right?
> 
> They can't run an OS kernel, although I think there's a project to port BSD 
> userland (?) to run in a zone.
> 
> I think the two approaches are complimentary - for different levels of 
> isolation / convenience / migratability you choose the appropriate 
> virtualisation technique.

I imagine "zones = solaris equivalent of linux vserver/freebsd jails +
lots of resource management". Eg, all zones share the same kernel,
right?


> Another advantage of a Solaris Xen port is that you get the full driver 
> support of Linux, whilst being able to run Solaris at near-native speeds.

That's why i was asking: i'd like to try solaris (including zones), but
not on dedicated hw (and it's so much easier to download a ready-to-go
opensolaris rootfs image ;-)

I forgot to ask: on a VT-enabled CPU solaris/x86 (like any other OS/x86)
should run unmodified (at least when there are solaris drivers for the
virtual hardware)?

/nils.

Re: opensolaris port?

[Mark Williamson]

> > I think the two approaches are complimentary - for different levels of
> > isolation / convenience / migratability you choose the appropriate
> > virtualisation technique.
>
> I imagine "zones = solaris equivalent of linux vserver/freebsd jails +
> lots of resource management". Eg, all zones share the same kernel,
> right?

Yes, although I suspect Zones is the most comprehensive of the three in terms 
of isolation, they still share the same kernel.

> > Another advantage of a Solaris Xen port is that you get the full driver
> > support of Linux, whilst being able to run Solaris at near-native speeds.
>
> That's why i was asking: i'd like to try solaris (including zones), but
> not on dedicated hw (and it's so much easier to download a ready-to-go
> opensolaris rootfs image ;-)
>
> I forgot to ask: on a VT-enabled CPU solaris/x86 (like any other OS/x86)
> should run unmodified (at least when there are solaris drivers for the
> virtual hardware)?

It should do.  OpenSolaris/Xen will just be another option for maximum 
performance and for use on vanilla x86.

OpenSolaris/Xen may also support running as dom0 at some stage, which could be 
useful for users migrating from Linux to Solaris (keep running Linux apps in 
virtual machines) or in the other direction :-)

Cheers,
Mark