[ale] Mass Machine Virtualization w/ Remote GUI Access
James P. Kinney III
jkinney at localnetsolutions.com
Wed Feb 22 10:39:26 EST 2006
On Wed, 2006-02-22 at 10:24 -0500, Jeff Hubbs wrote:
> Jim -
>
> I've been reading up on Xen - how would CPU affinity be accomplished for
> multiple instances of Xen?
>
I don't know yet. That is on my "list of things to learn in the near
future". However, IBM has a decent startup article at:
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-affinity.html
>From that article, it looks like there would need to be a wrapper that
designate a thread for each Xen process and ties it to a particular
CPU.
If I were doing this, I would prefer to have a wrapper for each Xen
thread. That way if a single virtual process misbehave, I can kill it
off with out the entire stack crashing.
What really bakes my noodle is how to hard code affinity to a pair of
CPU and let Xen handle the single cpu interface from that.
> - Jeff
>
> James P. Kinney III wrote:
>
> >On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 15:27 -0500, Jeff Hubbs wrote:
> >
> >
> >>The 8-CPU mobo might be overdoing it but maybe not 4...
> >>
> >>Regarding Stephen A. DuChene's comment "We have found that even using a
> >>big server system with multiple GB of memory there is still a practical
> >>limit of around 4 - 8 people who can run VMware sessions off of a remote
> >>server," I wonder if that is caused by a RAM I/O bottleneck that the
> >>RAM-affinity of those boards can help get around. That is to say, does
> >>it raise that limit or at least "soften the knee" if you're using these
> >>new Opteron boards? Or, do I just have to buy one to find out? ;)
> >>
> >>Jeff
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >The IO bottleneck you run into is network bandwidth. Those Tyan boards
> >are some serious monsters and should be the best things out that can
> >handle the load. Run Xen on each physical CPU and ESX on each Xen
> >virtual machine to partition off the server from itself.
> >
> >And add some extra AC for the server :)
> >
> >
> >
> >>Joe Knapka wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>Jeff Hubbs wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>I've got a situation where a number of users on a development shop LAN
> >>>>are in a bad way because they're trying to run a number of different
> >>>>Win2K3 Server virtual machines - done up in Microsoft Virtual PC - on
> >>>>their desktops. This has come to result in people trying to pull and
> >>>>push around 4-6GB of MSVPC files on the LAN, and, of course, anyone who
> >>>>wants to actually run an instance on MSVPC has to have scads of RAM and
> >>>>this is often incompatible with various people's desktops and laptops
> >>>>who may be running "only" 512MB, tops.
> >>>>
> >>>>My way of addressing this would be to use VMware instead of MSVPC,
> >>>>running it on an "uberserver" capable of holding and running numerous
> >>>>virtual machines at once, such that various people can connect to the
> >>>>virtual machines at the display level from their own WinXP desktops and
> >>>>laptops.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>Ooh, this sounds like a perfect opportunity to go out and buy some of those
> >>>Tyan 8-CPU mobos we were discussing last week!
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>It's that last part that I have a question about. Given that it would
> >>>>be nice if more than one person could actually connect remotely to any
> >>>>one of these virtual machines (i.e., fighting over mouse/keyboard if so
> >>>>inclined), how to best cover the remote access?
> >>>>
> >>>>Ways I'm aware of include Xorg+Cygwin, a commercial X Server for
> >>>>Windows, VNC, or MS Terminal Services. [NOTE: I assume that all but the
> >>>>last would take place over OpenSSH].
> >>>>
> >>>>What do you think?
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>Micro$haft wants you to pay for every terminal server connection, and if
> >>>you run out,
> >>>you can't log into the machine at all, which is very annoying and seems
> >>>to happen
> >>>all the freakin' time. All of our machines have VNC installed, so that
> >>>we can get to
> >>>the machines even when folks have forgotten to log out the
> >>>two or three Remote Desktop sessions we're allowed on each one. I'd
> >>>probably go with
> >>>VNC and see how that works. You might give RealVNC some money for their
> >>>"enterprise edition" and avoid having to muck about with SSH tunnels.
> >>>
> >>>-- JK
> >>>
> >>>
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> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
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--
James P. Kinney III \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \ one Linux user /
Local Net Solutions,LLC \ at a time. /
770-493-8244 \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com
GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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