Re: FreeBSD HVM guests?

["Steven M. Bellovin" <smb%cs.columbia.edu@localhost>]

On Mon, 11 May 2009 16:15:46 +0200
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost> wrote:

> On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 02:50:11PM +0100, Hugo Silva wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I am considering to install NetBSD 5/Xen (64 bits) on some servers
> > that currently run FreeBSD 7/amd64. I've been testing NetBSD/Xen
> > i386 on older hardware (no hardware virtualization support) with
> > NetBSD PV domU's; It seems to work just fine.
> >
> > For my purposes, however, I need FreeBSD guests, and I am unable to
> > test this at the moment.
> >
> > I would like to know if anyone has useful feedback regarding HVM
> > guests, FreeBSD in particular, and NetBSD/Xen dom0 stability and
> > maturity in general.
> 
> NetBSD/Xen dom0 is stability is good; I've several servers running it,
> with NetBSD PV, linux PV, linux HVM and windows HVM guests. No
> problems so far.
> 
> I would expect a FreeBSD HVM guest to run just fine; it will see a
> PIIX3 IDE controller and a ne2000 ethernet device. Be aware that
> I/O performances won't be great using these emulated device though;
> but if your FreeBSD guest doesn't do mych I/O it should be fine.
> 
I thought FreeBSD had domU support at this point.  If I'm right,
wouldn't that help I/O performance a lot?


                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb