Ubuntu picks KVM over Xen for virtualization. Heading in a different direction from its main rivals, Ubuntu Linux will use as its primary virtualization software.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server both use the Xen virtualization software, a "hypervisor" layer that lets multiple operating systems run on the same computer. In contrast, the KVM software runs on top of a version of Linux, the "host" operating system that provides a foundation for other "guest" operating systems to run in a virtual mode. "We've chosen to settle on KVM as our main virtualization focus," Soren Hansen, the Ubuntu Server Team's 26-year-old virtualization specialist, said in the Ubuntu Weekly News. The move gives new prominence to KVM, which was initially popular with Linus Torvalds and other programmers of the Linux kernel. However, in the months since start-up Qumranet began the KVM project , the Xen programmers have made more progress in dovetailing their code more closely with the Linux kernel. The Performance Of Ubuntu KVM Virtualization.
The Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) has been in the mainline Linux kernel since Linux 2.6.20 in early 2007 and over time it has become one of the most widely used virtualization platforms on Linux.
Ubuntu uses KVM, Fedora uses KVM, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux has even switched from Xen to preferring KVM, among others. While occasionally we deliver new KVM virtualization benchmarks, we decided to investigate how the performance of KVM virtualization has changed -- if at all -- over the past two years for better or worse. We tested each of the Ubuntu releases from Ubuntu 8.04.4 LTS up through the newest Long-Term Support release, Ubuntu 10.04. With each release we first measured the performance of the host installation, then the performance of an Ubuntu 8.04.4 LTS virtual machine, and then the performance of the matching host operating system when virtualized. Setting up virtualization on Ubuntu with KVM. These instructions have been tested on Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic) 64-bit.
Skip right to the instructions if you’re short on time. After being a happy Xen user for several years now, I’ve recently had to switch to an alternative virtualization solution. My colleague Arun (@iamclovin) actually struggled for a week with Xen VMs that locked up on Hardy; we’ve had much success with Hardy and Xen before, so we attributed it to a hardware problem since these were our first blade servers. Out of ideas, we tried Karmic (Ubuntu 9.10) only to discover that Xen support via the apt package system is gone.
I went down the path of compiling a paravirt_ops Dom0 kernel (this article was very useful) but ended up deciding the process took far too long despite being successful. Chapter 19. Virtualization. The Kernel Virtual Machine. Ubuntu uses KVM as the back-end virtualization technology primarily for non-graphic servers and libvirt as its toolkit/API.
Libvirt front ends for managing VMs include virt-manager (GUI) or virsh (CLI). Alternative management options include convirt (GUI) or convirt2 (WWW). Installation - Installation and removal of KVM Networking - Network configuration; includes bridging Guest Creation - Creation of different kinds of guests Guest Management - Management of guests; command line or graphically Guest Console Access Direct access to the guest via the serial console KVM Directly - Using KVM directly (without libvirt) FAQ - Frequently asked questions, troubleshooting tips and other recommendations The use case targeted when KVM was moved into main is "server virtualization".
This means that even though KVM can be used to serve other purposes, it has been designed to be run on Ubuntu Server Edition to host non-graphical server operating systems. CategoryVirtualization. Simple Desktop Virtualization in Ubuntu 10.10. There are a handful of desktop virtualization products which work on Linux such as VMware, Virtual Box UML and so on. However KVM is a upcoming star in this busy market place. KVM (kernel virtual machine) is a upstream supported virtualization product. Redhat and Canonical are both betting hard on this technology with it becoming standard in RHEL6 and its already the power house behind Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud. If your looking to use desktop virtualization rather than server virtualization its very easy. In this simple tutorial I’ll show you how to get up and running with a NAT’d connection that will provide your guest access to the internet via the use of a local (on your PC) network.
Prerequisite’s: First lets see if your machine can use KVM technology by checking if your processor supports the hardware acceleration required, from a terminal run these commands: egrep -c ‘(vmx|svm)’ /proc/cpuinfo This will return a numeric value. Egrep -c ‘lm’ /proc/cpuinfo Installation: