Re: Stability of -current for a Xen Dom0 machine

[Stefano Marinelli <postnet%dragas.dyndns.org@localhost>]

Hello. First of all, thank you (and haad) for your nice replies.

> Did not know Hetzner's current metal they offer you. In case it offers 
> further 
> (and important for you) hardware features i.e. server management stuff and 
> others typical for server management should try if NetBSD provides all what 
> you want on it. Otherwise it might be a good choice to use i.e. a Linux Dom0 
> and run your NetBSD DomUs on it.

Maybe Linux would be a wiser choice as Hetzner doesn't provide a console and 
just a recovery system (Linux, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris). So in case of (future) 
troubles, there might be problems.
Anyway, my real world experiences shown that NetBSD is working far better, even 
if "just" as Dom0. I/O is better and generally speaking is more reliable.

> If you are happy with NetBSD as Dom0 on that machine - it would be a very 
> nice 
> choice.

Yes. I manage some NetBSD dom0 machines and they just sit and work, without any 
single problem.

> If you are a BSD source geek i can recommend i.e. Gentoo with xen-sources 
> kernel (3.4 or 4.1 xen - i use 3.4 at the time because of compiling problems 
> with 4. - Gentoo uses a xen kernel based on SuSes patchsets) as you might 
> configure the binary configuration nearly BSDish - i.e. to bring out the 
> "last 
> ressources" out of the hardware.

I've been using Gentoo for a long time (back in 2003). Maybe it could also be 
ok, but in case of Linux, I think I'll stuck with Squeeze.

> I.e. if required you may run a LVM on Dom0 as transparent backend without LVM 
> within NetBSD and/or vice versa.

I think I will run NetBSD-current (a recent build) for some weeks to test and, 
if stable enough, put it in production. I will have a overlap time of 2 months 
so there's enough time to see if everything is ok.

Thank you again!
Stefano