Subject: Re: [vserver] Roadmap and Future ...
From: Christoph Lukas <christoph.lukas@gmx.net>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 08:36:57 +0000

Hi,

Am Donnerstag, den 26.02.2009, 22:00 -0500 schrieb John A. Sullivan III:
> On Fri, 2009-02-27 at 01:35 +0100, Herbert Poetzl wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 05:07:06PM -0500, John A. Sullivan III wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2009-02-26 at 20:07 +0000, Ed W wrote:
> > > > Herbert Poetzl wrote:
> > 
> <snip>
> > 
> > > I believe Ed is giving some excellent guidance here.  
> > 
> > > We are very impressed with the technology of the VServer project but
> > > it does not project a very professional ethos, sometimes comes across
> > > as a tad bit arrogant, and it's very hard to pick up the project from
> > > scratch.
> > 
> > okay, I would like to get into details here, especially
> > the following points:
> > 
> >  - does not project a very professional ethos
> >  - comes across as a tad bit arrogant
> >  - very hard to pick up from scratch
> > 
> > could you (all) please elaborate on them, as I do not
> > fully understand why that would be so ...
> Ah, you mean I actually have to remember the history that led me to the
> perception :)  The last point is the easiest.  We had planned on using
> Xen for our large new project.  On a lark, I took a look at alternatives
> and stumbled across OpenVZ.  That led me to this strange but not very
> publicized beast named VServer.
> 
> Under the gun on a major deadline for a huge project already running
> behind schedule and with funding delayed to hire the needed resources so
> the team was stretched beyond productivity (sound familiar - at least
> the last part!), we decided to make a major technology change and pursue
> VServer because of its remarkably efficient use of resources.
> 
> The challenge was where to start.  Coming from a very different
> virtualization perspective, I had to learn a new way with new tools.
> There was a nice overview but how do I dive into the internals and
> figure out how to adapt it to my environment.  Much of the documentation
> reflects being lost in your own context, i.e., it makes perfect sense to
> you but not necessarily to someone who isn't already very familiar with
> either VServer or kernel hacking - i.e., thinking like a developer and
> not an end user.  Imagine someone who is brand new to VServer and knows
> very little about kernel internals trying to install on RedHat by going
> to the RedHat howto: http://linux-vserver.org/Installation_on_Redhat
> or the Ubuntu howto: http://linux-vserver.org/Installation_on_Ubuntu
> with statements like: This is NOT COMPLETE -- remove this message when
> you get it to work!

We are using vserver as our main development virtualisation platform for
our small two person software development company here. We are using it
on our desktop and server systems. While the latter run Debian and have
original Debian Vserver kernels running. Our desktops run Ubuntu which
does not ship any Vserver kernel.

Therefore every now and then when we decide to upgrade our desktops to a
new ubuntu version I spend some time to adapt the vserver patches to a
distribution kernel. This usually takes about 1 or 2 days of work and I
never know if I will succeed or not.

I know that Herbert votes for 'forget about the ubuntu kernel, take a
vanilla kernel and patch that one'. But this is no real alternative for
me for at least two reasons:
1) I never know if the Ubuntu system does need some of the ubuntu kernel
patches applied to work properly.
2) I don't want to have to care for security updates myself. 

My point is:
I think for an average user it would be necessary to supply distribution
patchsets; for a new user it would even be necessary to supply kernel
packages. Although we are very happy with vserver this is the only
reason I keep thinking about alternatives every now and then. 

I would agree that this is nothing which could be done by a two person
development team for all those distributions around. But a least for
ubuntu I could step in and:
* prepare patches for the distribution kernels (although I am no kernel
developer) but I would need someone to review these patches
* maintain the 'Installation on Ubuntu' wiki page

at least as long as we are using vserver on Ubuntu. :)

And just let me say 'thanks for the great work'!

Cheers,
Christoph