[Qemu-devel] multiple VMs

[Qemu-devel] multiple VMs

[Joe Batt]

...
> I think that multiple VM's is a worthy goal as long as you can minimise CPU
> usage. Having multiple VM's gives you the ability to do some very cool
> things. I use VMWARE in Windows and sometimes have both Linux and FreeBSD
> running in VM's so I can test software against all 3 OS's at once. I imagine
> it would be very useful to developers of cluster software.

Run two or three copies of QEMU.  I think QEMU is so much cooler than
VMWare because it runs completely in user space.  You can run as many
copies as you need and be confident that they aren't interfering with
each other.

A pause button would be nice, but I think CTRL-Z works just fine for
now.

As a developer, I'd love to have a single stable tiny Linux distro
running on the metal and a dozen other "machines" to do work on.  The
expense of VMWare wont allow me to do that now, as I use a variety of
desktop machines (at different client sites).  My personal office
machine does operate that way.

My priorities (though I don't have time to contribute) are winnt family
guest support, stability, speed.

Joe

Re: [Qemu-devel] multiple VMs

[Jamie Burns]

You might want to look into Zen if that is your goal.

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/

It is a tiny OS that just runs other OS' on top of it. Microsoft has a
Windows XP port, although I don't know if they will release anything.

Jamie.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joe Batt" <Joe@soliddesign.net>
To: <qemu-devel@nongnu.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2004 2:42 PM
Subject: [Qemu-devel] multiple VMs


> ...
> > I think that multiple VM's is a worthy goal as long as you can minimise
CPU
> > usage. Having multiple VM's gives you the ability to do some very cool
> > things. I use VMWARE in Windows and sometimes have both Linux and
FreeBSD
> > running in VM's so I can test software against all 3 OS's at once. I
imagine
> > it would be very useful to developers of cluster software.
>
> Run two or three copies of QEMU.  I think QEMU is so much cooler than
> VMWare because it runs completely in user space.  You can run as many
> copies as you need and be confident that they aren't interfering with
> each other.
>
> A pause button would be nice, but I think CTRL-Z works just fine for
> now.
>
> As a developer, I'd love to have a single stable tiny Linux distro
> running on the metal and a dozen other "machines" to do work on.  The
> expense of VMWare wont allow me to do that now, as I use a variety of
> desktop machines (at different client sites).  My personal office
> machine does operate that way.
>
> My priorities (though I don't have time to contribute) are winnt family
> guest support, stability, speed.
>
> Joe
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Qemu-devel mailing list
> Qemu-devel@nongnu.org
> http://mail.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/qemu-devel

Re: [Qemu-devel] multiple VMs

[John R. Hogerhuis]

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On Tue, 2004-04-06 at 06:42, Joe Batt wrote:
> Run two or three copies of QEMU.  I think QEMU is so much cooler than
> VMWare because it runs completely in user space.  You can run as many

On the user space issue, I guess that's not completely true when it
comes to networking? You have to be using the TUN/TAP driver.

I wonder if it would be of interest to embed a SOCKS proxy or something
similar in QEMU. Then you could truly get by without having to use any
special drivers in the host environment, since QEMU would use the
sockets API for network communication instead of driver. You would have
configuration to do within the image to make the networking apps use
SOCKS though. It's a trade-off, but in those situations where you don't
admin your own box, it could be the only option.

-- John.

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Re: [Qemu-devel] multiple VMs

[Ian C. Blenke]

On Tue, Apr 06, 2004 at 11:06:06AM -0700, John R. Hogerhuis wrote:
> On the user space issue, I guess that's not completely true when it
> comes to networking? You have to be using the TUN/TAP driver.
> 
> I wonder if it would be of interest to embed a SOCKS proxy or something
> similar in QEMU. Then you could truly get by without having to use any
> special drivers in the host environment, since QEMU would use the
> sockets API for network communication instead of driver. You would have
> configuration to do within the image to make the networking apps use
> SOCKS though. It's a trade-off, but in those situations where you don't
> admin your own box, it could be the only option.

Something worth considering would be a PPP/SLIP connection via a
virtual serial device. 

If you do not have root privs on the host, you can always use a PPP/SLIP
emulator like TIA or SLiRP.

	http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/SLIP-PPP-Emulator/

- Ian C. Blenke <ian@blenke.com>

Re: [Qemu-devel] multiple VMs

[John R. Hogerhuis]

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On Tue, 2004-04-06 at 11:52, Ian C. Blenke wrote:
> Something worth considering would be a PPP/SLIP connection via a
> virtual serial device. 

On the host you have to still do an install of TIA or SLiRP? I'm
probably missing something. If that's the case it seems like you might
as well use TUN/TAP. Though it's possible you could get around needing
root access somehow... I don't know enough about TIA or SliRP.

Here's where I think QEMU could get: say a Morphix CD has a QEMU.EXE and
AUTORUN on it, uncompressed. Then a 98 or NT user who doesn't have much
control/knowledge of his machine could just pop the CD in his machine
and it would automatically pop open Linux in emulated environment. 

The first thing I would imagine trying as a user is opening a browser
and going to Google. But to make this "just work", the fundamental
problem is getting raw network packets (or even in the case you
describe, network packets with a PPP link to maintain and PPP wrappers
for every IP packet) out of the network card on the host machine without
requiring any special setup.

Within the Morphix image itself, anything is possible. But I am
interested in seeing Nothing additional needing to be done on the host
machine.

To get there I think you have to proxy it out.

Another possibility is to replace the sockets API within the (emulated)
Morphix image with something that can hook directly into a QEMU "API"
that would pass through all socket library calls to the host. That would
provide a transparent proxy so no special per-app configuration would
even be necessary with the Knoppix image.

-- John.


> If you do not have root privs on the host, you can always use a PPP/SLIP
> emulator like TIA or SLiRP.
> 
> 	http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/SLIP-PPP-Emulator/
> 
> - Ian C. Blenke <ian@blenke.com>
> 
> 
> 

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