[Xen-users] Will Xen work for my desired setup?

["P Orrifolius" <porrifolius@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello folks.


Sorry this is such a general question... I'm planning on consolidating
my home machines/laptop using Xen and would like to know if there are
any potential showstoppers in my scheme.  Any general advice would be
appreciated.


Currently I have some server-like machines (dns, imap etc) a
workstation and a laptop.
Two people use X/KDE on the workstation.  One linux-savvy (Me), one
not linux-savvy (NotMe).  There are two user accounts on the
workstation and we run two X servers so we can both be logged in at
once.  But if we both need to use a computer at the same time someone
gets bumped off to the laptop.  Some stuff is available via NFS, but
other stuff I have to use rsync to copy back and forward to the
laptop.

The laptop also gets used disconnected, ie on the way into work or
cruising on my 450' launch on the harbour.  I have to make sure I
rsync up properly so I've got all I need.


The scheme:

Workstation (AMD Phenom/4GB RAM, has svm):
  RAID 1 the disks, 'boot' and 'other' partitions
  LVM the 'other' partition
  XEN minimalist dom0
  XEN 1 or more domUs for imap,www,dns,etc and coda
  XEN a linux domU for Me
  XEN a WinXP domU for Me
  XEN a linux domU for NotMe
  XEN a WinXP domU for NotMe

Laptop (Intel Core2Duo/4GB RAM, has vmx):
  partition the single disk into 'boot' and 'other' partitions
  LUKS the 'other' partition
  LVM the decrypted 'other' partition
  XEN minimalist dom0

No LUKS on the workstation because it needs to boot the server domUs
unattended after power failure.  Currently the laptop supports
hibernating to disk, I don't believe tuxonice works with xen so we
lose that capability.

Now when necessary a domU can be migrated between workstation and laptop.

Much of the stuff that had to be rsync'd is now within the domU vm.

Some stuff needs to be shared between Me and NotMe, eg music library.
This either goes into the nfs or coda server depending on need for
disconnected operation and file size, ie 2GB+ media files.

Some applications don't like working over nfs, eg digikam/sqllite for
NotMe's photos.  Coda may allow this without workarounds.  Concurrent
access is probably less likely using domUs compared to habitually
logging into both laptop and workstation.



Outstanding Questions:
 - User experience:  NotMe can probably handle logging into dom0 at a
VT and executing runLinuxHere/runWinXPHere/migrateLinuxToLaptop etc,
but is there a more user friendly way to do it?  If I've left my domU
running how does NotMe get to dom0 to launch a domU?
  I'd like to avoid X on dom0 if possible.  Also, what are the
security implications of standard users logging into dom0?

 - Hardware passthrough: once in a blue moon I play some games, hence
the WinXP for Me.  I think reserving the gfx card for my domU makes it
permanently unavailable to all other domains, or is it only reserved
when my domU is using it (ie could NotMe could shut down my WinXP and
start her own domU)?

 - Hardware passthrough: the workstation has a DVD burner.  Can it be
used by all domUs?  Or must it be reserved?  It's the only device on
the ide bus so reserving the whole bus may work.  If it needs to be
reserved can it be hot-unplugged from one domU and hot-plugged into
another so it's (more or less) available to all domUs?

 - Migration: the physical displays for the workstation and the laptop
have different resolutions.  Can a migrated domU adjust to use the
native resolution?  In fact all the hardware is different, is that
going to be ok?

 - Nested virtualisation: currently I've set up VMWare on both the
laptop and workstation for when NotMe has those "I can't do it without
Windows" moments.  She's used to using it now.  If I can't set up a
suitably user-friendly way for her with Xen can I continue providing
WinXP to her via VMWare running within her linux domU?

If you've read this far thank you very much for you patience! :)

P

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