From owner-freebsd-emulation@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Mar 4 11:13:54 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-emulation@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EF8CD1065672 for ; Fri, 4 Mar 2011 11:13:54 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from josef.karthauser@unitedlane.com) Received: from k2smtpout03-01.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net (k2smtpout03-01.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net [64.202.189.171]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id C9DCF8FC18 for ; Fri, 4 Mar 2011 11:13:54 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail 2342 invoked from network); 4 Mar 2011 10:47:14 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ip-72.167.34.38.ip.secureserver.net) (72.167.34.38) by k2smtpout03-01.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net (64.202.189.171) with ESMTP; 04 Mar 2011 10:47:14 -0000 Received: (qmail 13131 invoked from network); 4 Mar 2011 05:47:03 -0500 Received: from unknown (HELO ?90.155.77.76?) (90.155.77.76) by unitedlane.com with (AES128-SHA encrypted) SMTP; 4 Mar 2011 05:47:03 -0500 From: Dr Josef Karthauser Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 10:47:10 +0000 To: freebsd-emulation@freebsd.org Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1081) X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1081) Subject: Xen, and "ops_pv" boot loader? X-BeenThere: freebsd-emulation@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Development of Emulators of other operating systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 11:13:55 -0000 Hello everyone, I'm beginning to play with Freebsd and Xen, and I'm targeting a VPS = provider who is giving me a large memory instance for a good price. = However, he only supports "ops_pv" kernels, being primarily a linux = house. So, I'm trying to work out what the best approach is. Ideally I'd be = running amd64, but he doesn't want to run an hvmloader. I guess that = means that I need to be running an i386 kernel; hopefully PAE works so = that I take advantage of the memory. However, this appears to be an inflexible solution. Doesn't it mean that = I will have no ability to tweak kernel variables, because effectively = once it's setup he will control the boot process - I'll also not be able = to upgrade the kernel easily. Also, no access to single user mode... = Ideally I want a boot loader.... So, I was thinking. How do we make the boot loader appear to Xen to be a = paravirtualized kernel? Currently it isn't even an elf object, but what = it is was. How much work do you think that it might be to make a "loader = kernel" that appears to be a kernel, but in fact is a boot strap. The = idea being that it could be run as a "ops_pv" kernel on a Xen platform = but otherwise behave exactly like our boot loader, processing = loader.conf, and booting a kernel in the normal way. Does anyone have any idea of whether that's a possibility? Or, is there = something fundamental about the pv_ops model that would prevent this? If this were possible we could boot the amd64 XENHVM kernel in a pv_ops = manner, with full control of the kernel configuration. Hmm... Joe