Re: VT-X processors , xen 3.0 , drives and virtualization (in 32 bit environment)

[Charles Duffy <cduffy@spamcop.net>]

Ian Brown wrote:
>  1) True to now and the current xen-3.0 version: When running Xen 3.0
>  on these VT processors, can we run an unmodified kernel ?

For your DomUs, yes. For your Dom0, no. Running a modified DomU kernel 
should be more performant.

>  and in such a case, what about the device drivers - isn't there a
>  problem with them ?

Emulated hardware, based off of drivers borrowed from QEMU, is provided 
to VMX domains. The drivers they need will be for the emulated cards, 
not for the real devices in the machine.

> I mean , in practical terms , if I will set my bootloader to have the
> following entry on a machine with VT-x processor:
>  kernel /xen.gz dom0_mem=x
>  module /vmlinuz-#version ro root=...
>  (and initrd if needed)

No, that won't work, because that's trying to use an unmodified kernel 
as Dom0.

> will I be
> able to create a new domain based also on unmodified vmlinuz-#version
> kernel ?

Yes, though VMX domains work a bit differently from non-VMX ones -- the 
process won't be exactly the same except with a non-Xen-enabled kernel.