WARNING - OLD ARCHIVES

This is an archived copy of the Xen.org mailing list, which we have preserved to ensure that existing links to archives are not broken. The live archive, which contains the latest emails, can be found at http://lists.xen.org/
   
 
 
Xen 
 
Home Products Support Community News
 
   
 

xen-users

Re: [Xen-users] Diskspace to DomU

To: Jake Stevenson <jake_s@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Xen-users] Diskspace to DomU
From: Tupshin Harper <tupshin@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 00:15:24 -0700
Cc: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Delivery-date: Mon, 16 May 2005 07:14:20 +0000
Envelope-to: www-data@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In-reply-to: <20050516010157.54FE01F50B1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
List-help: <mailto:xen-users-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=help>
List-id: Xen user discussion <xen-users.lists.xensource.com>
List-post: <mailto:xen-users@lists.xensource.com>
List-subscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-users>, <mailto:xen-users-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=subscribe>
List-unsubscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-users>, <mailto:xen-users-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=unsubscribe>
References: <20050516010157.54FE01F50B1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sender: xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
User-agent: Debian Thunderbird 1.0.2 (X11/20050331)
Jake Stevenson wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am about to setup a new Xen server which will host a few DomU's, one
> of which will be a file server.
> The file server will, naturally, have quite a lot of disk space and my
> question is:
>
> If my file servrer domain uses a lot of disk space and the disks used
> are on two separate controllers, is it possible to dedicate those two
> PCI-devices to the domain and have that domain run LVM or EVMS to
> manage the disks itself instead of exporting a volume through Dom0?
>
> And if it is, which is best? Does it yield better performance this
> way, or should I stick with exporting it through Dom0?
>
> Oh, I have already used dedicated Ethernet NICs for a few domains so I
> now it is possible to assign PCI devices to privileged domains, so my
> first question is really if block devices is a "special case"
> which will not work.....
>
> Any input is appreciated.
>
> Best Regards
> Jake S.
>
FWIW, my approach for this was to export the raw devices that make up
the lvm to my fileserver domU and exclude (raid devices md2, md3, and
md4 in my case) them from /etc/lvm/lvm.conf in the dom0:
filter = ["r|/dev/md2|", "r|/dev/md3|", "r|/dev/md4|" ]

my domU disk config then looks like this:
disk = [ 'phy:xen_vg/fileserver,hda1,w',
         'phy:xen_swap_vg/fileserver,hda2,w',
         'phy:md2,sda2,w',
         'phy:md3,sda3,w',
         'phy:md4,sda4,w',
       ]

I haven't done any comparative benchmarks of this approach vs. any
other, but I haven't noticed any aggregiously bad performance from my
fileserver domU either.

-Tupshin

_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>