Re: [Qemu-devel] Qemu sandbox for teaching

From: Herbert Poetzl <herbert@13thfloor.at>
To: Jerome Warnier <jwarnier@beeznest.net>
Cc: List qemu-devel <qemu-devel@nongnu.org>
Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] Qemu sandbox for teaching
Date: Sun, 29 May 2005 15:49:12 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20050529134912.GA11324@MAIL.13thfloor.at> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1117302653.4733.12.camel@mobj>

On Sat, May 28, 2005 at 07:50:53PM +0200, Jerome Warnier wrote:
> Le samedi 28 mai 2005 à 14:13 +0100, Paul Brook a écrit :
> > On Saturday 28 May 2005 13:42, Jerome Warnier wrote:
> > > Does someone here have an idea on how to do the following using Qemu,
> > > but I'm open to other suggestions:
> > >
> > > I would like to provide a UNIX CLI sandbox for users to poke around in a
> > > UNIX course. It would be better if available from the web (preferably
> > > without having to install anything on the users' PC), and Free (as in
> > > free speach).
> > > The problem is that I need to give them root access, or at least a
> > > simulation.
> > > It would be even better if we could for instance install RedHat in it,
> > > but it's not really required.
> > 
> > It's not really answering your question, but qemu is probably OTT for this. If 
> > I was setting this up I'd use UML and a java web based telnet/ssh client.
> Well, I was thinking about what the snapshot feature of qemu could bring
> me.
> 
> In fact, I thought about the following solutions:
> - qemu (or whatever other virtualization system)
> - chroot (or specifically dchroot in Debian) and remote telnet or ssh
> access
> - UML
> 
> Advantages of every solution:
> - qemu virtualizes a complete machine, which means installation of an OS
> is possible and it is pretty safe (security-wise) to setup
> - chroot is fast to run and pretty safe
> - UML is fast to run and pretty safe
> 
> Problems of every solution:
> - qemu is slow, and a lot of virtual machines at the same time on the
> same machine will slow it down and use too much memory, I think (I'm
> talking about 10 people «playing» at the same time). Using only a
> text-mode virtual machine may probably help, though
> - chroot does not allow much and may take time to setup correctly
> - UML is difficult to setup, and needs a kernel patch (even on 2.6?) to

you might want to have a look at linux-vserver

	http://linux-vserver.org/

it allows you to have VPS with certain root rights
on a shared host, in a secure manner (no overhead)

HTH,
Herbert

> work
> 
> 
> > Paul
> -- 
> Jerome Warnier <jwarnier@beeznest.net>
> BeezNest
> 
> 
> 
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