Re: Toughts on Virtualization

Eduardo Schoedler <[email protected]> Sun, 8 Apr 2012 23:18:17 -0300
Newsgroups gmane.linux.gentoo.server
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Em 08/04/2012, às 15:26, Pandu Poluan <[email protected]> escreveu:
> I've deployed more than 20 Gentoo servers over VMware and XenServer, no performance issues.
> 
> From the top of my head, Some pointers when doing menuconfig:
> 
> * Go "tickless"
> * Activate the relevant paravirtualization code; choose the hypervisor-friendly suspend instead of spinlock
> * Use the paravirtualized storage driver (Vmware PV-SCSI or Xen Block FrontEnd) 
> * If using hardened, first configure for "virtualization", exit (and save), menuconfig again, and check the options under GrSec and PaX; there are options that will cause performance penalty when run on top of a hypervisor (see the help text) 
> * Do not compile *any* unnecessary drivers (e.g., wireless support, exotic devices) 
> * Use I/O without delay
> 
> And, deployment-wise :
> 
> * When possible, do not create more than one partition per virtual drive; instead, create 1 virtual drive per filesystem mountpoint. E.g. :
> 
> Instead of having /dev/sda{1,2,3,4} for /boot, /, /usr, and /home, respectively, create 4 virtual drives instead. The above mointpoints will then respectively map to /dev/sd{a,b,c,d}1
> 
> (The reason for the latter is because partitions get handled by the VM (slower), while accesses to virtual hard disks are handled by the hypervisor (faster)). 
> 
> I don't have access to my Gentoo systems ATM, so I can't provide a more detailed guide.
> 
Pandu,

Please provide more information if you can, like kernel config for XenServer guest. I always have problem to do that with Gentoo and I'm using CentOS because of that.

Thanks in advance.

Regard,

--
Eduardo Schoedler