| OpenVZ vs. Other Virtualization? [message #20602] |
Sat, 22 September 2007 05:08  |
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Hello all,
I'm new here. I've just heard OpenVZ from one of my friend and try it. I have been able to set it up, although just so far as setting up apache on it.
I want to know. What is the strong and weak point of OpenVZ against other Virtualization software such as Xen and Vmware?
One thing I notice is that OpenVZ doesn't support guest OS other than Fedora and Centos? Also there's no GUI of the guest OS?
Thank you for your info.
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| Re: OpenVZ vs. Other Virtualization? [message #20604 is a reply to message #20602] |
Sat, 22 September 2007 14:01  |
ugob
Messages: 271
Registered: March 2007
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Senior Member |
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| tiger74 wrote on Sat, 22 September 2007 01:08 |
Hello all,
I'm new here. I've just heard OpenVZ from one of my friend and try it. I have been able to set it up, although just so far as setting up apache on it.
I want to know. What is the strong and weak point of OpenVZ against other Virtualization software such as Xen and Vmware?
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Strong point: Very low overhead, compared to xen and vmware.
Weak point: Can only run a limited number of linux distros, and no other OS
| tiger74 wrote on Sat, 22 September 2007 01:08 |
One thing I notice is that OpenVZ doesn't support guest OS other than Fedora and Centos? Also there's no GUI of the guest OS?
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It can more than that, but only linux, because all the containers run on the same kernel.
http://download.openvz.org/template/precreated/
There is no gui of the guest os... probably. I personnally don't mind because I use OpenVZ only on my servers. I think you could run X, but you'd need to connect using a X terminal, but I'm not familiar with that. Or maybe VNC... I don't know.
Please read the manual before asking questions:
http://download.openvz.org/doc/OpenVZ-Users-Guide.pdf
Please have a look at the wiki before asking questions:
http://wiki.openvz.org/Main_Page
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| Re: OpenVZ vs. Other Virtualization? [message #20749 is a reply to message #20602] |
Tue, 25 September 2007 23:02 |
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dowdle
Messages: 261
Registered: December 2005
Location: Bozeman, Montana
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Senior Member |
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What is it you want to run on your virtual machine(s)?
Check out this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system-level_virtuali zation
Basically, OS Virtualization offers a much lighter footprint per virtual machine than Machine Virtualization does. How much lighter? Well, in OpenVZ... a VPS/VE/VM (whatever you want to call it) only takes up the resources needed to run the services you want... so a simple VPS with only basic services and Apache (static pages, no PHP) takes up about 24MB or so in approximately 16 processes. That means that you can fit a lot of VPSes on a physical machine (density)... and they actually scale well... because they only add the overhead needed to run the additional processes.
Someone else already mentioned there are quite a few pre-created OS Templates for a number of distributions beyond Fedora and CentOS. Me? I prefer CentOS... as it is what I run on the HN and most VPSes... but that is a personal preference.
Regarding GUI environments within your VPS, I've successfully installed XFCE4, GNOME and KDE inside of both Fedora 7 and CentOS 5. There is a little trick involved to make sure you don't accidentally install udev... but other than that, it is doable... and you can access it via vncserver/vncviewer... but that is only if you want to run a complete desktop environment.
If you just want to occationally run a GUI app, as previously mentioned, you can do so over ssh with the -X flag.
--
TYL, Scott Dowdle
Belgrade, Montana, USA
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| Re: OpenVZ vs. Other Virtualization? [message #20754 is a reply to message #20602] |
Wed, 26 September 2007 00:22 |
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Hello dowdle,
Thank you for the insight. Now I know why they call it VMware (Virtual Machine ware?). I see... So, OpenVZ is another level of virtualization that is the OS? Ok.. I see.. much lighter. This is great. Well, distro is not a problem. I love Centos and the Redhat family.
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| Re: OpenVZ vs. Other Virtualization? [message #40129 is a reply to message #20754] |
Tue, 20 July 2010 08:07 |
blaise
Messages: 7
Registered: May 2010
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Junior Member |
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Hi,
I am new to virtualization from the technical side, and this is an old threat, but it seems a good starting point to me
I have the intention to install a Ubuntu 8.04 VPS (CentOS is the host) to host a local Web site for internal testing. At the same time I would like to perform code development for the site on the same VPS (I am too ambitious I know), therefore I need to use an IDE (i.e. IntelliJ, netbeans, ...). Since GUI is mentioned in this threat, my question is: would that be a bad experience from a performance point of view? I mean, would it be slow for the graphical IDE?
If that is doable, what memory allocation is best advisable for that VPS? Any other suggestions, help, advices are welcome.
P.S. if you see that this is not the right threat to post this question, pls let me know and I will move it to an appropriate one.
Thanks,
Blaise
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| Re: OpenVZ vs. Other Virtualization? [message #40130 is a reply to message #40129] |
Tue, 20 July 2010 11:04 |
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JimL
Messages: 116
Registered: February 2007
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Senior Member |
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| blaise wrote on Tue, 20 July 2010 04:07 | Hi,
I am new to virtualization from the technical side, and this is an old threat, but it seems a good starting point to me
I have the intention to install a Ubuntu 8.04 VPS (CentOS is the host) to host a local Web site for internal testing. At the same time I would like to perform code development for the site on the same VPS (I am too ambitious I know), therefore I need to use an IDE (i.e. IntelliJ, netbeans, ...). Since GUI is mentioned in this threat, my question is: would that be a bad experience from a performance point of view? I mean, would it be slow for the graphical IDE?
If that is doable, what memory allocation is best advisable for that VPS? Any other suggestions, help, advices are welcome.
P.S. if you see that this is not the right threat to post this question, pls let me know and I will move it to an appropriate one.
Thanks,
Blaise
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I do what you are wanting to do and more. I can't tell the difference in operation from a stand alone machine when running IDEs, gvim or any other X based program. I'm sure some of the more graphically intense programs like games aren't as fast, but I do development/testing mostly. The way I do it is to connect via ssh (ssh -X ) and just run the program. When installing and X program via apt-get or aptitude you'll drag in the necessary X libraries and other files automatically. I usually start building my VPS with the output of vzsplit (man vzsplit). If you aren't going to run but one VPS I'd use vzsplit -n 4 just for a start. If you find the /proc/userbeancounters has errors simply bump the count up 20% for the parameter that has the errors and reboot.
You can even run update-manager via ssh -X if you want.
I think you'll find it fairly easy to do what you propose.
Jim.
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| Re: OpenVZ vs. Other Virtualization? [message #40132 is a reply to message #40129] |
Tue, 20 July 2010 22:18 |
efball
Messages: 41
Registered: September 2006
Location: Santa Rosa, California
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Member |
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| blaise wrote on Tue, 20 July 2010 04:07 |
I have the intention to install a Ubuntu 8.04 VPS (CentOS is the host) to host a local Web site for internal testing. At the same time I would like to perform code development for the site on the same VPS (I am too ambitious I know), therefore I need to use an IDE (i.e. IntelliJ, netbeans, ...). Since GUI is mentioned in this threat, my question is: would that be a bad experience from a performance point of view? I mean, would it be slow for the graphical IDE?
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There will be no hardware acceleration for graphics, but otherwise they work fine. An Ubuntu VPS on a CentOS host will probably break udev in Ubuntu (depends on kernel versions). The way to fix this is to remove udev and create any missing /dev/ files with MAKEDEV.
E Frank Ball efball@efball.com
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