From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1LFTqC-0000Ij-LL for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 24 Dec 2008 08:32:00 -0500 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1LFTqC-0000IV-5r for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 24 Dec 2008 08:32:00 -0500 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=37057 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1LFTqC-0000IS-2m for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 24 Dec 2008 08:32:00 -0500 Received: from yx-out-1718.google.com ([74.125.44.154]:2880) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1LFTqB-0001ti-Pz for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 24 Dec 2008 08:31:59 -0500 Received: by yx-out-1718.google.com with SMTP id 3so1263911yxi.82 for ; Wed, 24 Dec 2008 05:31:58 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <7fac565a0812240531s202b3dafm5ccd8516f21292d4@mail.gmail.com> Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 13:31:58 +0000 From: "Alexey Eremenko" Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] Merging improvements from VirtualBox OSE into qemu? In-Reply-To: <49522F8D.4000203@turnkeylinux.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <49522F8D.4000203@turnkeylinux.org> Reply-To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org List-Id: qemu-devel.nongnu.org List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 12:48 PM, Liraz Siri wrote: > Hi, > > I'm new to the list so let me introduce myself. I am one of the > developers for TurnKey Linux, a new opensource project that develops a > family of lightweight installable live CDs optimized for various > server-type tasks including LAMP, Ruby on Rails, Django, Joomla, Drupal, > MediaWiki, and others: http://www.turnkeylinux.org/ > > This type of pre-integrated, ready-to-use system is typically called a > software appliance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_appliance > > We use qemu heavily in our development/testing. We find it's better > suited as a scriptable primitive than other opensource alternative such > as VirtualBox. Thankfully the KVM fork has gotten rid of the performance > disadvantage qemu used to suffer from. > > Anyhow, I've recently explored the latest release of VirtualBox (which I > understand is based on qemu). > > Two major changes in version 2.1 caught my attention: > > 1) complex setup is no longer required for "bridged" networking: > > This is a big win for us as the former networking setup complexity > indirectly made TurnKey appliances much more difficult for regular > users to set up. > > VirtualBox came to its senses and realized the tap configuration mess > was way too complex for most users and cumbersome even for advanced > users. Also, I don't think it worked with wireless NICs. > > In the latest release, "host interface networking" just works. The > user simply selects which NIC to connect the guest to (e.g., eth0) > and they're done. > > Behinds the scenes VirtualBox is putting your NIC into promisc mode to > sniff packets to guests and injecting packets directly to the NIC. > Essentially it creates a virtual NIC in software. > > This works without root privileges somehow, probably by taking > advantage of new infrastructure in the VirtualBox device driver. Yes, the new networking option makes life easier - and it works without root if you are part of "vboxusers" group on your PC. This feature is unlikely to be copied, because it is part of the "vboxdrv" driver + part of the GUI. However, other features, such as improved ICMP support via NAT, may eventually make it into Qemu/KVM. -- -Alexey Eromenko "Technologov"