[KLUG Members] XEN-initial impression vs. UML

[Bruce Smith]

SuSE 9.2 comes with all the RPM's needed for UML, including a YAST
module to configure everything and get it running.

Unfortunately the one time I tried it, I got part way into installing
the UML VM and the install process hung on me.  Has anyone gotten it to
work with the stock SuSE 9.2 packages?

 - BS


> Let me preface my remarks by saying I have never done any serious work with
> UML, but I have played around with a couple of versions of UML. I just now
> had a chance to bounce over to the Xen web site for a quick look.  I
> immediately noticed a couple of differences. It appears that the Xen
> approach requires the initial installation of the Xen environment that can
> then host a Xen modified linux kernel. UML uses a UML modified linux kernel
> to run on top of a normal linux kernel. The UML modified kernel process
> creates what appears to the host system as a single large file. The UML
> kernel uses this disk space as a container to hold the entire virtual
> machine. Hence, the UML VM can host it's own file systems, and network.
> 
> The UML approach enables some interesting possibilities. For example, an
> entire VM can be physically moved from one machine to another, an entire UML
> session can be completely encrypted by running a VPN inside the VM. This
> allows the entire VM session to be secured from other users of the same
> machine, the LAN and the Internet. Lots of other interesting possibilities
> that sparked my interest. Not sure how any of this would work with Xen.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Bob
> 
> Robert V. Kanaley
> Manager Information Systems
> Agdia, Inc.
> rvk at agdia.com
> http://www.agdia.com
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> There was some discussion of User Mode Linux not long ago as an
> alternative to VMWare. This looks interesting too, and it is supposed to
> ship with the next version of SuSE 9.3 in April.
> 
> http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/