#1 2012-09-09 20:49:00

systemshq

New member

Registered: 2012-08-30

Posts: 8

KVM Guest

Just set up a kvm guest using vanilla sources, a bare minimum kernel configuration file from here:-

http://kernel-seeds.org/seeds/64_bit/vanilla/

and just the following additional kernel settings

CONFIG_VIRTIO_BLK=y
CONFIG_SCSI_VIRTIO=y
CONFIG_VIRTIO_NET=y
CONFIG_VIRTIO_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_HW_RANDOM_VIRTIO=y
CONFIG_VIRTIO=y
CONFIG_VIRTIO_RING=y
CONFIG_VIRTIO_PCI=y
CONFIG_VIRTIO_BALLOON=y
CONFIG_VIRTIO_MMIO=y

Goes like a rocket! Very pleased indeed!

If you are compiling your own kernel and want a bare miminal configuration to start from this website is excellent!

http://kernel-seeds.org/

Last edited by systemshq (2012-09-09 20:53:01)

404_Error

Core Team Member

From: Quebec city, Quebec, Canada

Registered: 2010-10-08

Posts: 458

Re: KVM Guest

Also if you have enabled KSM (CONFIG_KSM=y), on your machine just :

echo 1 > /sys/kernel/mm/ksm/run

And you see that your guests will share some memory pages, thus making a bit more free memory.

systemshq

New member

Registered: 2012-08-30

Posts: 8

Re: KVM Guest

That's great! Many thanks for the tip!

systemshq

New member

Registered: 2012-08-30

Posts: 8

Re: KVM Guest

For my own personal use this works really really well. I would love to use this for the company I work for but Funtoo lacks one thing. There's no security document or security advisories listing vulnerabilities etc. and the fixes available for them. I know funtoo is a close relation to gentoo and they have that kind of info on their site, however, funtoos profiles do track different ebuild releases especially for the userland tools. Given Funtoo is aimed at servers it really does need a security team to provide security updates, advisories etc if it is to be taken seriously. I hope it gets this because it really is fantastic!

Last edited by systemshq (2012-09-13 21:44:36)

systemshq

New member

Registered: 2012-08-30

Posts: 8

Re: KVM Guest

These funtoo KVM VMs that I've set-up are a lot more responsive than the counterpart ubuntu VMs. I'm using vanilla 3.5.3, 3.5.4 kernels with pappy's seeds settings:-

http://kernel-seeds.org/seeds/64_bit/vanilla/

and enabling all the virtio settings. The gentoo security advisory will do for the time being!:):) For KVM VMs these little funtoo guys are brilliant!

Next on the list try OpenVZ + rhel6 stable + metrobuild inside a KVM machine:)

Last edited by systemshq (2012-09-17 00:43:08)