Ubuntu Server Book Needed?

Tue Jul 15 10:00:24 UTC 2008

Hi Mike,

Thank you so much for your input! I will definitely consider all of it 
when going through the second draft of the virtualization chapter in a 
week or two.

If you could give me your contact details by private mail, I'll make 
sure you get a free copy of the beginning and advanced books once they 
are out later this year.

Thanks again!
Sander

Mike Lane schreef:
> I realized that I sent my reply to Sander only so I have copied it below:
>  
> ------------------------
>  
> Hi Sander,
>
> I will likely work through the KVM section again soon as I have been 
> trying different Virtualization platforms to try and see which one I 
> like best.
>
> I like the idea of running KVM on Ubuntu server a lot and remember 
> getting some error messages trying to create virtual machines 
> following your KVM section. I don't remember what they were as this 
> was a few months ago when I first started using Ubuntu (so it could 
> well have been user error). Since then I have also been looking at 
> VirtualBox as I had read that it too had the ability to run in 
> headless mode.
>
> I am not sure if you should discuss KVM more in the book as compared 
> to Xen for example? I say this as KVM is what Ubuntu officially 
> supports now I think, right?
>
> What would I like to see more of? Well here is a wish list off the top 
> of my head:
>
> * discussion of growable vs fully expanded virtual hard drives for 
> performance. If the virtual hard drive is fully expanded is it created 
> as a contiguous file even if it is several Gb in size? If virtual hard 
> drives are growable does this mean that they will become fragmented?
> * how to monitor virtual machine performance remotely if possible and 
> also discussion of remote desktop or similar to both headless and GUI 
> virtual machines. Remote management tools - what are they and how to 
> install and use them.
> * Ubuntu JeOS - the benefits of using this operating system for 
> virtual machines. Are VMWare Tools necessary to run JeOS in KVM? If so 
> how to install VMWare Tools. Discussion of the benefits of VMWare 
> tools on Ubuntu JeOS.
> * What are the specific optimizations that JeOS offers other than a 
> small hard drive footprint and low memory use (without VMWare Tools) 
> on KVM?
> * Any methods to reduce disk I/O operations on virtual machines to 
> improve performance further?
> * What features are proposed for future releases of KVM?
> * More detailed explanation of the qemu commands i.e. parameter by 
> parameter so that the reader knows what the switches are for etc
> * Virtual machine management in general - scripts to start up a 
> particular virtual machine on boot for example, or shut down all 
> virtual machines one by one. Scripts to back up virtual machines to 
> remote stoarge and then boot them once this is done.
> * How to "import" VMWare virtual machines to KVM - if this can be 
> done? There are plenty of VMWare appliances that I would like to run - 
> can this easily be done on KVM and what steps would need to be taken 
> for example? Is there any performance penalty in importing a VMWare 
> virtual machines as opposed to creating it in KVM?
> * Is there a GUI tool to create KVM virtual machines on the desktop 
> before moving them to the server (which is how I might prefer to work).
> * Can I do snapshots in KVM? So discussion of the full feature set vs 
> the competition (VMWare) for example.
> * does a kernel update affect my KVM installation?
> * can I do some kind of VDI with KVM?
>
> Basically I would like a full and detailed account of the limitations 
> and features of KVM and how to administer the server through the 
> command line and remotely with GUI tools if that applies also.
>
> With virtualbox I had a hard time getting the bridged networking to 
> work and I did not get that far with KVM so I can't comment there.
>
> I realize that this is much more than would ever be in a beginner 
> book. Even so I would have liked to see more page space devoted to 
> Virtualization so that more ground could be covered.
>
> I guess that this is why I said that I would happily buy a good book 
> just on Virtualization.
>
> I think I ended up feeling that the explanations of technologies was 
> fine (pages 329 to 331) but that the walkthrough of creating virtual 
> machines for KVM (332 to 335) did not explain the syntax or the 
> process fully enough for me. Does the Qemu window that you see when 
> installing XP run when XP is running on the server for example, or is 
> it just to monitor the install? I guess if I had got that far maybe it 
> would become clearer :-)
>
> So I am not sure how much this helps you as it is far more information 
> that would be included in a single chapter on Virtualization ... but I 
> think tying in JeOS would be great as would importing VMWare virtual 
> machines as well as ways to remotely administer virtual machines.
>
> I will try and get back to you on my experience the second time round 
> now that my "server" machine is free to have ubuntu loaded on to it 
> again. This may not be very quickly though as I am taking a summer 
> class on linux / UNIX which looks like it will take up a fair amount 
> of my spare time.
>
> Mike
>
>
> > Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:17:58 +0200
> > From: soren at ubuntu.com
> > To: ubuntu-server at lists.ubuntu.com
> > Subject: Re: Ubuntu Server Book Needed?
> >
> > On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 09:13:05PM +0000, Mike Lane wrote:
> > > I actually have the first book that you linked too and have found it
> > > pretty useful so far. I was actually very disappointed with the
> > > section on virtualization though which very briefly covers KVM, Xen
> > > and I forget the third one off the top of my head.
> >
> > IIRC correctly, the book was based on Feisty, and virtualisation in
> > Feisty was rather basic. I imagine a newer edition would include stuff
> > on libvirt and all the surrounding tools.
> >
> > --
> > Soren Hansen |
> > Virtualisation specialist | Ubuntu Server Team
> > Canonical Ltd. | http://www.ubuntu.com/
>
>
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