[Gllug] RHEL Virtualisation Puzzle

[Jon Fautley]

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:44:20 +0100
"Stephen Nelson-Smith" <sanelson at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I have an x86_64 RHEL 5 update 2 machine, subscribed to the
> virtualisation channel.  I installed a 32 bit Centos 5 guest over
> http, using virt-install.
> 
> I'm slightly confused by conflicting information.  The Redhat
> documentation (Virtualisation Guide 5.2) indicates quite clearly that
> I cannot run a paravirtualised i686 guest on an x86_64 platform.  It
> also indicates, and I have read elsewhere, that to install a fully
> virtualised system I need to boot from installation media.  I
> categorically didn't boot off a CD/DVS or an ISO on the filesystem.  I
> just used virt-install, and pointed it at my rpm repository.  I don't
> recall whether I specified the -p flag, but I think the default is
> paravirtualisation, isn't it?

Sounds like you did indeed install a paravirtualised guest.
 
> I don't have access to the machine for a few days but my mind is
> puzzled.  Is it likely that my 32 bit domain is paravirtualised?  And
> if so, is the Redhat documentation out of date?  Or is it HVM?  In
> which case, is the Redhat documentation incorrect?

It's highly likely that the CentOS system is paravirtualised.
32-on-64bit is now a lot better with RHEL 5.2. I'm not sure if it's
officially "supported" by Red Hat or not though - out of the office so
can't immediately check.

It's always "sort of worked" to install 32bit guests on 64bit hosts,
but it wasn't fully supported as it had the unfortunate side-effect to
explode in interesting ways :(

Cheers,

/j
-- 
Jon Fautley RHCE, RHCDS, RHCX        email: jfautley at redhat.com
Senior Consultant                    cell :     +44 7841 558683
Global Professional Services
Red Hat UK, 200 Fowler Avenue, Farnborough, Hampshire, GU14 7JP
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