
XCPng: libre XenServer - based2
https://xcp-ng.github.io/
======
tjoff
I really hope this takes off. I even run XenServer on my workstation with GPU
passthrough etc. and the changes in 7.3 will cost me two Windows 10 licenses
and having to start my workstation all over.

It felt utterly hopeless but this might reignite my hope for continuing
running on ~xenserver.

~~~
jitl
+1. I’ve always wanted to do one of the GPU passthru Linux workstation/gaming
machine builds, but it seems like doing so with the official XenServer is now
impossible for hobbyists.

~~~
kipari
It can be done with a bit of work using QEMU/libvirt. The Arch Linux wiki has
a good guide for doing it. Not that it’s a pretty solution always…

~~~
blibble
these days it works out of the box on debian stable

run virt-manager, create vm, select your graphics card, and it boots

~~~
stryk
which gpus are easier to work with in this scenario, amd or nvidia?

~~~
ymse
The two parent posters are probably talking about PCI passthrough, in which
case it does not really matter. The virtual machine gets the entire GPU and
runs the driver. It also needs a dedicated monitor, keyboard and mouse.

However Xenserver (and VMware) supports GPU sharing between _multiple_ virtual
machines, essentially GPU virtualization. Both Nvidia and AMD have custom
solutions for this. I believe this is what the ancestor comment is using on
Xenserver.

There is work-in-progress support for GPU sharing in Linux KVM as well,
although currently I think it's restricted to Intel. If you're interested in
that, I would recommend going with AMD, since they maintain a high-quality
driver in Linux itself (unlike Nvidia who only maintains a proprietary out-of-
tree driver), and thus is much more likely to be supported by KVM.

~~~
simcop2387
> The two parent posters are probably talking about PCI passthrough, in which
> case it does not really matter.

Not quite, Nvidia actually forbids the use of their consumer level cards being
used this way and actively tries to deter it by detecting the use of a
hypervisor in the drivers and refusing to initialize the card. There are ways
to either work around or defeat this detection, either by using patched
drivers that remove the check or by. Having the virtual machine hide it's
presence from the guest system which can have a performance impact. AMD does
not try to prevent such uses of their consumer level cards and are more likely
to work out of the box.

------
snvzz
I used and really liked ganeti[1]. I wish they'd make a release once in a
while.

I love the way it works, its overall architecture. Very clean and reliable
feeling. A bit like a kubernetes for VMs.

Install in your favourite distro, assign it a network bridge (eg: br0) and a
lvm volume group, and done. All nodes in a cluster do replicate the
configurations, and can become the master node at a moment's notice.

[1] [http://www.ganeti.org/](http://www.ganeti.org/)

~~~
voxadam
[http://minimega.org/](http://minimega.org/)

~~~
snvzz
Like most such tools, it isn't comparable to ganeti.

------
merb
* better backups

would be great. the backup situation on xenserver compared to vmware/hyper-v
sucks. or to say it differently veeam gui is kinda strange, but it's a really
good backup tool.

~~~
nraynaud
Have you tried xen orchestra? They are my client, and I see a lot of code
around backups in github.

