anyone want/need a SxS for User-Mode-Linux?

[Net Llama!]

It allows you to run a self-contained linux instance from within another 
linux instance.  Dump on top of that the fact that a non-root user can 
run/own that instance.

Its basically like VMware for Linux, only its all GPL'd.

I'm using it for a project at work for our sales & marketing 
deptarments.  Basically, we setup SourceForge instances within RH-7.2 
for potential customers to try out. Rather than dedicating 1 physical 
server for each, we've got 30-50 all running on 1 box.  For the past 
year or so, we've been just running Redhat-7.2 filesystem images, 
mounted on a loopback, with SourceForge in them, in a chroot'd 
environment.  Unfortunately, there are problems in doing it that way. 
FOr starters, we can't run syslogd inside the chrooted environment, 
because it has no independent kernel, and if we mount /proc, it ends up 
being the /proc for the entire box, so weird/bad things happen if you 
try & stop something like crond or apache within the chroot.  And 
overall, its just not scaling very well.

So, i'm in the process of setting up a 4-way Xeon box (its got 4GB RAM, 
and will eventually have 3 or 4 attached JBODs with around 1.5TB of 
storage) with many UML instances.  The host OS can really be any linux 
distro at all, but i'm currently using RedHat Advanced Server.  Think 30 
simultaneous Redhat-7.x instances running on one box, each completely 
independent of the others, and oblivious of the others.  Each has its 
own kernel, and process table, its own eth0 interface, so that you can 
treat it like its a unique virtual machine.  And with the ethernet 
bridging that i finally figured out, each sits on the network like a 
real networked OS.

There's alot more detail to it, but i won't bore everyone unless they 
really want to hear more about it.

Matthew Carpenter wrote:
> Could you give a primer?  Like what IS UserMode Linux?  I've seen the term several times but never knew what it was or why I'd need it.
> 
> begin  "Net Llama!" <netllama at linux-sxs.org>
> (Fri, 06 Sep 2002 20:12:28 -0700)
> 
> 
>>Well, i finally conquored the beast.  Got User-Mode-Linux (UML) 
>>(http://user-mode-linux.sf.net) running on a bridged ethernet interface, 
>>so that i was able to assign a static IP to the UML, and run apache 
>>within it.
>>
>>Anyhoo, is anyone else interested in me writing a SxS for it?  Its very 
>>long & complicate (IMO), so i don't want to spend an hour or 3 writing 
>>this up if no one else cares about or needs it.


-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
L. Friedman                       	       netllama at linux-sxs.org
Linux Step-by-step & TyGeMo: 		    http://netllama.ipfox.com

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