 And there are a little bit more about it. Currently, you can start and install QEMO systems with it and KQEMO. I forget to test KVM, but I guess it's the same because KVM is the same interface to control as QEMO. Yeah, Xen doesn't work yet because only recently the lib word does support Xen, so it's not yet developed and tested with it. And what is still lacking also for Xen stuff, as it has a different screen, you don't load install easels into the system. You need some support to install specific guests. This is still lacking, but there's a workaround. You can install your guests like you did before, for example, with Xen tools. And you can use the word manager, the lib word console tool to dump the config. And then from then on, you can use that config and control the systems with the word manager of it on a console with lib word. But I think there will be much progress in these areas because it's an interesting tool. Yeah, the next new thing that came in last year is VirtualBox. VirtualBox is a nice virtualization solution for the desktop. You can compare it with VMware desktop solutions like VMware Workstation or the Graphical VMware Server stuff. But it's free software since last year. It's not only this tool was not born this year, or last year. It's in use in internal systems and for customers by a German company since years, as far as I know. But last year, they decided to give a GPL version of it. And yeah, not much later than that, there were also packages in Debian to be able to use these things. And yeah, there's also there's a good development team. It takes maybe some days, or it takes a day or two to get new versions into Debian. So you have most often the newest version available. Yeah, interesting about this solution is it will probably grow much more because SunBot is company last week. So they see some value probably in this. I did some research on the Google trends which shows you for which keywords people search. And VirtualBox is actually going above Xen these days. So we'll see what happens there. Yeah, another thing that is also new that is the Auto Package Test Xen LVM. Auto Package Test is a tool from Ian Jackson which already exists in a while. You can automatically test your packaging with it. And with the Auto Package Test Xen LVM stuff, you can even use Xen Instances and LVM to make snapshots which are easily reproducible and resettable to test your packages. Yeah, what else? I'm not talking much about v-server and open vz now because I don't use them myself. But as far as I can see, they are still quite well maintained and regularly updated. But there are no very new tools for this. Interesting in QEMO, as I already mentioned, there are now three queries to choose from. And I will talk about Xen more later. Yeah, QEMO. QEMO is still many people's favorite testing tool for simple testing, not for running servers in production, I guess, but you just do software tests and want to test installation CDs or stuff like that. Then QEMO is very easy to handle, very fast to get started with. It has a good console interface where you can really control many things, but some people don't want to use that, some people want to click. And another interesting thing is maybe the clicking is not as important, but sometimes if you have 10 different ways to call QEMO and you always have to choose that and enter that manually, that is maybe hard. Many people would say I write a script and save that and then I have this, but other people want to click and save their configs. That's what these tools are good for. One new thing there is QTEMO. It's easy to use, easy to get started with. You have a simple interface and I think it's for less experienced users. It should be very simple and easy to use. On the other hand, it has not the full set of options available that you can have in QEMO. The other tool is QEMO Launcher. This is the one of these I will talk about, which is already in Edge available. This is really very full-blown. You have control as far as I could see over all features of QEMO. For everything you can enter in the command line in QEMO, you can control with the QEMO Launcher. That also says if you start the GUI, you have thousands of options at your face and it takes a minute to get used to, but it's quite reliable and works very well. Belonging to QEMO Launcher is QEMO Control. This is a GUI not for the main QEMO, but for the QEMO Monitor. QEMO has, if you start a virtual machine, it has in the background the monitor that controls the virtualization. You can do things like add CDs, eject and load CDs, and save the state of the system, and things like that. Normally, you have a console where you enter everything manually, but QEMO Control is the tool where you have all these features, also visible and clickable. Experience, it has a lot of full functionality, because it's a little way to bring the QEMO Launcher and continue. You have more options, but not all as far as I could see. And the first time I went to QEMO, the question was, can it work? Can someone organize quite well? So if I had to choose, I probably would stay at home for the launch of it. Yeah, but there's quite a lot to choose from. Yeah, interesting thing. I would want that I could share configuration files between these three GUIs, because if I change my mind and want to go to the other, I would like to have it that I could reuse the configurations. You can't. So decide one time and never go anywhere else. Yeah, that was so much about QEMO. Now what's happening in Xen? Xen is in an, yeah, let's say interesting state in Lenny currently. The problem with Xen is that the Xen upstream developers are trying to get the things necessary for Xen into the mainline Linux kernel, but they are not yet fully successful with this. So currently, the main Linux kernel has only working support for Xen guests, but you also need Xen support for Xen hosts. And this did not yet happen. The Debian kernel developers decided for quite understandable reasons that they only want to support one kernel version. And yeah, the point is now you have for this newest kernel version, you only have Xen guest support. But if you want to get started with Xen, you have all the newest Xen packages in Lenny and in Unstable, but you have no kernel for your host. So the only workaround is take your 2.6.18 kernel probably from the Xen upstream binary packages or something like that. That's probably nothing you want to do in production. So this is still a problem that hopefully will be solved for Lenny. So there are kernel patches developed by Redhead for this DOM0 kernel support. I couldn't get them running yet. So people using Xen on Debian can really hope or have to hope and probably try to help getting these things handled somehow, mostly testing these DOM0 patches. If you use Xen in Debian, you should maybe try to get your hand on these things. Yeah, now a bit more generic stuff. Many of these things are tools that you already know. If you know, use Xen under Debian. A little preview, I will tell a little bit more about how Xen tools work. OK. And I will talk a little bit about Xen men. Actually, not too much, but yeah, the Xen shell is something interesting also from the Xen tools developer, which is good if you host Xen machines and won't give your users access to single systems. And there's the DTC hosting platform for this. And there's a new tool, Google Garneti. I will talk about these things now a bit more in detail. Yeah, if you want to manage your Xen instances in Debian, then you realize that you are missing. Sorry. Yeah, the next stuff, sorry, I'm a bit out of my concepts. Yeah, we're still at an overview about management. So things you want to use if you are bootstrapping your Xen instances in Debian is FAIM, which I work with. And I like it very much because it has a very sophisticated scheme for installing systems. It is class-based. You can define specific stuff in very detail, very easily, in some simple text files. And you can combine your configurations you once have set up. Another interesting tool for bootstrapping. Your systems is RINs. Also new in Lenny now. Yeah, there was, in previous times, there was RPMStrap, YAM, and MACH, which are not so well maintained. And therefore, the Xen tools developer decided that he needs a better tool because he wants to deliver it with his Xen tools. So some people want to bootstrap Zuse or sent us guests on Debian and run them. And RINs is the tool that you want to use there. Yeah, some details about the Xen tools in Debian. Xen tools are some shell scripts or Perl scripts with simple command line tools, which help you to get started with bootstrapping and pulling up new Xen instances. So it's very simply to install and get started with. And it's very configurable. You have a main config file where you can set many defaults. You can, if you want, for each host you want to run, each guest host you want to run, you can have a specific config file. And even all those stuff that are defined in those files, you can even override with a command line. So I don't think it can be more flexible than anything. And in the new versions in Lenny, you can also make very complex partitioning schemes. So what you have an edge now, you have only simple partitions, only one partitions for slash root. And now the newer versions really support the usual complex partitioning scheme, so which is quite interesting. Xen2 does everything for you if you start to use it. It creates config files, it creates the block devices, everything you want, and bootstraps the system with the bootstrap for Debian, with Rins, or you can just copy images you already have from templates if you want so. And then you can customize them with specific roles and specific scripts you still run there. And also new in Lenny is now you can also set up Xen configs which you not boot with a complete file system, but just boot from NFS root, which you might want to have things more manageable. And all that with a simple command, so really one call and then five minutes later depending how many packages you install, you have this. Yeah, it's quite easy to use. You just install it, get the newest versions from the CVS, or there's also a special app repository if you don't want to use the unstable repository, but only the new versions of this package. And yeah, simply edit one config file. There are five options to set and get started. Here are some commands you would run if you do start using it. So it's really straightforward. I'm not going to read them now, I guess. Yeah, and there's a simple file to set your partitions and stuff. By the way, if you have any questions, then just interrupt me. Yeah, if you don't, if the hooks and roles you have with SendTools are not enough for you, then you might combine SendTools and Fire, which I already talked about. Fire has a directory installation option, and then you can really combine these tools. Yeah, I wrote here's still the comment that there is a talk about Fire, but this was DevConf, this is not here. Unfortunately, we don't have it. Yeah, it's as simple as you can think. Instead of writing a road script for SendTools, you simply write a five-line script that just calls Fire, and then everything works well. So these tools are both very extendable and modular and can be combined very easily, because they are all just simple and shell-based. Yeah, the next tool also from the guy Steve Kemp, who wrote SendTools. He's writing every day a new send management system, as I can see it so. Yeah, extend shell. This is a tool. Yeah, if you want bootstrap extend domain, you can in the config file specify a username, and for a user with SSH login, you specify that this login shell is not the bash or something, but the extension. Then these people can log in, and they can do everything you can do with a running send instance. So they can start, stop it, change stuff with it. Quite interesting. So yeah, especially for hosting, and this is also a host for, it is used in a hosting environment for some Debian-related stuff, so it's used in production, and it seems to work quite well. Yeah, that's how it looks like. Probably it's not very good to see. Yeah, another very interesting thing and tool, which is now new in Debian, and in general, quite new to the free software world, is that Google wrote a tool for their internal use to manage their send instances, not for the Google.com, but for smaller systems with not as much load. They called it Garneti, and they also published that as free software last year. It's not that large now and has not that much, that very much functionality and stuff. It's still developing, even if it's now released in version 1.3. But interesting thing is you can very easily with some very simple commands set up a cluster of multiple extension hosts. You can control this cluster by logging in in any of the hosts belonging to the cluster, and then you can set up instances on any choice of machines which are in that cluster, and they can be mirrored automatically. So if you want to set up higher available stuff with DRBD, you don't have to mess around with DRBD, so it's just install Garneti and a command, say, instead of non-mirrored disk, you say remote rate, and then you have a mirrored disk system, so yes. And as the developers of Garneti are also Debian developers, yeah, the time from new versions of Garneti to having it available in Lenny or Unstable and even the backpods is very short. Yeah. And yeah, it's really easy to get started with, and Garneti can also be combined with FI. I'm trying to promote FI a little bit. Yes. Another tool which is, maybe people already know it, who are using Xen, it's XenMen. Actually, it's not that much to say about it right now, as I wrote there, because I'm not sure if it's not stale, it's development, so there was no new version since a while, and yeah, if word manager is coming, you might want to rather use the word manager if you want to use a GUI, because with word manager, you are more flexible. Apart from that, XenMen is similar to word manager, but it's Xen centric. You can only use it to control Xen instances. The problem with it is that it's still lacking Debian guest support, so if you have installed your host somehow, your guest, and started it, or no, if you have it and if you have a config file, you can load that config file and start it and control it somehow, but it's lacking the installation support. Yeah. Another thing is DTC Xen. I already mentioned it. It's a part of a hosting platform, a free hosting platform. It's a company called GPL host, which develops all their software they use to control their hosting stuff. They publish all their software in GPL under the GPL license. So it's a setup for bigger things and if you have many hosts to manage. The DTC Xen plug-in is a system that for one time it provides a SOAP server, with which you can remote control Xen host. And the other thing is you can generate performance graphics, which are nice if you have some users who want to see how their systems perform, how much network traffic they make and stuff like that. It's really quite nice. It's installed with a simple command. It still has many dependencies, so one time if somebody is interested only in the graphics, then it might be worse to try pulling that out of the package because it has too many dependencies for simple graphics. There's only one script needed in it. What is new there is it now even brings DTC Xen firewall script, which I didn't test it yet, but it should be there for helping to set up packet filtering for your to protect your DOM zero host. And yeah, that's how it looks like. So if you like graphics, then you can get this in about 10 minutes or even less, I guess, five minutes. It's really only up get install. Yeah, some words about compatibility with Debian and other distributions. Yeah, the bootstrap, if you want to run and bootstrap Debian on another system, that is quite simple. You can install the bootstrap from sources everywhere like you want. You can install it from sources or use Alien to make an RPM and then you can bootstrap Debian on Zuzer. If you happen to be somewhere where you force to use Zuzer, you can just bootstrap your Debian system there. The same goes for Xen tools. It's very easy to install on other distributions. The other way around, it was not always that simple. Yeah, RINs is now the tool if you use RPM distros on Debian. What is also interesting if you use other distributions or if you use Debian on other distributions with Xen, you most often don't want to use the DOM-0, the kernel of the DOM-0 system for your other distribution guests because they sometimes expect stuff to be a little bit different. They expect consoles to be on different devices because in Xen you have two or three choices, how you access consoles. And you don't want to use that. You most often want to use the kernel, which is in the guest system and load the same kernel via the tool PyGrup. Or you just copy it to the host and load it in your config. Yeah, that's what's already about it. I think that maintainers of virtualization stuff, also if I might have forgotten some, it looks like they or it's surely like they really do a good job there. So we have in Lenny brand new stuff. And yeah, I can only thank those people if anybody is there. So we have a lot of time for discussion and questions. What about the state of Xen in Lenny on AMD64? Good question. What's the state of AER? Basically, what's the state of Xen in Lenny? OK, yeah, I already talked about that. It's a general problematic state because the DOM-0 problem. But then, as far as I know, DOM-U kernel is for AMD64. I don't. I must admit, I'm not so well known into the AMD64 stuff. In Lenny, there are no Xen kernels anyway. They are unstable now. In unstable, I know for the 32-bit platform, Intel platform, they are there. I often heard of problems with Xen and 64-bit stuff. So most often the recommendation is, yeah? Well, it's the other operating systems that also have the same issues as we have. Or other line of flavors. For example, Fedora has had the same issues. The problem with Xen is that Xen upstream is lacking the latest kernels by far. You all know that this is the most major issue. Fedora has decided to stop putting F4 into MacPort Xen. But it's that for Xen. That's not for Xen, so yeah, for Xen, of course. And they want to release with AMD64 and EC86. And they want to release in, I think, July this year. So I'm quite optimistic that we'll have something around for Lenny. Fine, thanks. No more questions? I cleared everything, OK. Which of these tools would you think it would work to maybe integrate into the Debian store so people could proceed the installation of Xen guests while they are installing their main Debian system? Like if one would want to make a custom Debian distribution that would be based on Xen guests' vitriolization for the mid-services. You want the host set up and the guests at the same time with the Debian installer? I would, yeah, the most easy to integrate stuff, is Xen tools, actually. Because it's really simple, some scripts. But if you want to do that, don't reinvent the wheel because there is a German computer magazine which did that already. So they have, last year at some time, published. They call it, how's it called? It's a CT server, I guess it's called. And some years ago, they did the CT server with UML, user mode Linux. Yeah, they have a customized Debian installer. And it installs a base system. And it installs some guests. And it installs a firewall. And I don't know exactly what some things you need for the small business or small office or home office stuff. So some management GUI for users and stuff like that. So about three guests. And they do it now with Xen. The last version is Xen. I didn't use it yet. But actually, they did exactly what you say. CT server, I think it's called. I can find it on the web and tell you exactly what it is. What would you say, Phyllis is the fit of 64 bits? It's problematic. I don't use it myself. But everything I hear always, when people are doing some Xen stuff with 64 bits, I hear about problems. Maybe I don't hear if things go well. But I don't know. Have you heard of people who are working finding this system? Yeah. Let's put it that way, yeah. I heard of people who had problems. And I haven't heard of people who do that very nicely. Well, it works for me. Yeah? On edge. OK. So you run the 64-bit edge and Xen on it. Yes. OK. So there's one draw. What did you say? Or you can use v-servers, which doesn't always use v-servers. Depends on what you want and what you need, yeah? You can always use v-servers instead of Xen, yeah. But you can also combine these. Yeah. I mean, it's anyway the choice, which virtualization you choose. It's most often not a simple task. You have to really think about what you need and what you want. I also, even if I did a lot with Xen now, I would not recommand Xen for everything. So if you ask me what to choose, then I have to ask you, tell me some minutes or a little bit longer what exactly do we want to do. So in many cases, it might be appropriate to just use v-server. Yeah. And on the desktop, it might be appropriate to use VirtualBox. And if you need many options and specific stuff, then QEMO or KVM are more interesting. So I guess we are very far away from one virtualization solution that does everything and everything very well. And I think I'm not sure if that can ever be the goal, because even for management tools and stuff, you don't have the same needs on your desktop for testing an easel image as you have on a server. So it's a large ecosystem of choices. And yeah, you can choose what you want from it. Many things work well. So yeah, if there are no more questions and no further discussion, then I can finish or will finish.