Question on UML

[madchaz]

Let me start by saying I haven't tried User Mode Linux yet, as I am still installing the machine in question. However, I was curious to know what others might be thinking.

Right now, I have a machine I use as my main server. It's in the process of geting a fresh install on it.

I also want to use it as my main firewall/gateway to the internet. Now as you might guess, I'm not very happy with the idea of using the main OS to do this, as it runs a lot of other services.

I was thinking of using a virtual machine running inside of it to run as my router. I have a wishlist and was wondering if anyone could either point me to somewhere with the info or provide me with it.

1: I'd like it to run gentoo. My understanding is that the UML in portage does that, but I'm not possitive. Anyone can confirm?
2: I'd like to be able to start/stop the entire machine as a service in the main machine. Is that possible?

I've also looked at xen a litle, but not sure quite what to make of it yet.
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[BudgetDedicated]

Although Xen and UML are implemented differently, they generally serve the same purpose. BUT:

From our experience we can say that Xen performs WELL in server production environments (we run MANY instances of linux in our datacenter). If you take the trouble to setup grub and setup a xen kernel you will experience better performance than with UML. The UML-tap devices are a disaster in performance if you compare them to XEN-vif's (they are really gigabit if you have gigabit networking equipment).

If it's not such a heavy duty task it's not that big an issue, but Xen (version 3, that is) also has a capability of running unmodified OS's (if you have a VT processor, which will become more common on short notice). So if you want to invest in the most USEFUL knowledge, experiment with Xen.
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Grt, Erik
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