[gentoo-user] Mini Gentoo in VMWare

[gentoo-user] Mini Gentoo in VMWare

[Trenton Adams]

Hi Guys,

Has anyone here played with minimalizing everything for use in vmware?

Basically what I want to do is create a series of VERY tiny VMs that
are all independent of each other, which provide one service.  For
instance, I might put apache on one VM, and tomcat on another, and so
on.  Obviously, I would want their memory usage to be absolutely
minimized, seeing that I would like to run them all on one computer.
I would probably provide them 64M-128M of RAM each, for their specific
service.  Perhaps a little more if really required.

Is there really anything that I should worry about?  Perhaps I should
just DO IT?
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[gentoo-user] Re: Mini Gentoo in VMWare

[F.J.Zhao]

In order to create very tiny vms, I suggest you use lfs instead.
Gentoo is harder to do so.

2006/11/3, Trenton Adams <trenton.d.adams@gmail.com>:
> Hi Guys,
>
> Has anyone here played with minimalizing everything for use in vmware?
>
> Basically what I want to do is create a series of VERY tiny VMs that
> are all independent of each other, which provide one service.  For
> instance, I might put apache on one VM, and tomcat on another, and so
> on.  Obviously, I would want their memory usage to be absolutely
> minimized, seeing that I would like to run them all on one computer.
> I would probably provide them 64M-128M of RAM each, for their specific
> service.  Perhaps a little more if really required.
>
> Is there really anything that I should worry about?  Perhaps I should
> just DO IT?
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>
-- 
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[gentoo-user] Re: Mini Gentoo in VMWare

[Harm Geerts]

On Friday 03 November 2006 06:43, Trenton Adams wrote:
> Hi Guys,
>
> Has anyone here played with minimalizing everything for use in vmware?
>
> Basically what I want to do is create a series of VERY tiny VMs that
> are all independent of each other, which provide one service.  For
> instance, I might put apache on one VM, and tomcat on another, and so
> on.  Obviously, I would want their memory usage to be absolutely
> minimized, seeing that I would like to run them all on one computer.
> I would probably provide them 64M-128M of RAM each, for their specific
> service.  Perhaps a little more if really required.
>
> Is there really anything that I should worry about?  Perhaps I should
> just DO IT?

Nick[1] made a post about minimizing Gentoo a while back.
But that topic was mainly about the disk usage.
I suppose you would benefit from a system that uses the -Os flag to create 
small binairies.

But do you think vmware is fit for such a task?
vmware is a big strain on resources itself.
You might want to have a look at xen[2] instead.

[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/160899/focus=160903
[2] http://www.xensource.com/xen/xen/index.html
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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Mini Gentoo in VMWare

[Trenton Adams]

Yes, VMWare is fit for the task, simply because I would be using it on
a windows machine.  Unless there is something better for a windows
machine?

Thanks for the hints.

On 11/3/06, Harm Geerts <harmgeerts@home.nl> wrote:
> On Friday 03 November 2006 06:43, Trenton Adams wrote:
> > Hi Guys,
> >
> > Has anyone here played with minimalizing everything for use in vmware?
> >
> > Basically what I want to do is create a series of VERY tiny VMs that
> > are all independent of each other, which provide one service.  For
> > instance, I might put apache on one VM, and tomcat on another, and so
> > on.  Obviously, I would want their memory usage to be absolutely
> > minimized, seeing that I would like to run them all on one computer.
> > I would probably provide them 64M-128M of RAM each, for their specific
> > service.  Perhaps a little more if really required.
> >
> > Is there really anything that I should worry about?  Perhaps I should
> > just DO IT?
>
> Nick[1] made a post about minimizing Gentoo a while back.
> But that topic was mainly about the disk usage.
> I suppose you would benefit from a system that uses the -Os flag to create
> small binairies.
>
> But do you think vmware is fit for such a task?
> vmware is a big strain on resources itself.
> You might want to have a look at xen[2] instead.
>
> [1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/160899/focus=160903
> [2] http://www.xensource.com/xen/xen/index.html
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>
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Re: [gentoo-user] Mini Gentoo in VMWare

[Hans-Werner Hilse]

Hi,

On Thu, 2 Nov 2006 22:43:40 -0700 "Trenton Adams"
<trenton.d.adams@gmail.com> wrote:

> Has anyone here played with minimalizing everything for use in vmware?

No, not for that use, but for other uses, yes. But you need to specify
what exactly you mean by saying "minimized".

I wouldn't go the road and use LFS, as suggested here. IMHO, LFS is
absolutely not the way to go when in need for security updates and
stuff. Gentoo does it just fine.

OTOH, you won't be able to run Tomcat with 64MB of RAM without it
getting veeeery sluggish...

My suggestion would be to setup a "master" chroot environment on some
crafty machine and compile binary packages for all the software you
need, then distribute them to the VMs by setting up stage3's and set
PORTAGE_BINHOST appropriately. If you want to strip down documentation,
locales and stuff, have a look at the scripting facilities of portage:
e.g. put this into /etc/portage/bashrc (on the "master" chroot, if you
go with a buildhost):
---snip
post_src_install() {
 rm -rf image/usr/share/man
 rm -rf image/usr/share/doc
}
---snip


HTH,

-hwh
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Re: [gentoo-user] Mini Gentoo in VMWare

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 6 Nov 2006 13:50:35 +0100, Hans-Werner Hilse wrote:

> If you want to strip down documentation,
> locales and stuff, have a look at the scripting facilities of portage:
> e.g. put this into /etc/portage/bashrc (on the "master" chroot, if you
> go with a buildhost):
> ---snip
> post_src_install() {
>  rm -rf image/usr/share/man
>  rm -rf image/usr/share/doc
> }

Or use FEATURES="nodoc noman noinfo", provided you are using a recent
enough portage, I'm unsure of when this was introduced.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Committee (noun): A group of people spending hours taking minutes

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Re: [gentoo-user] Mini Gentoo in VMWare

[Bo Ørsted Andresen]

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On Monday 06 November 2006 14:27, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Nov 2006 13:50:35 +0100, Hans-Werner Hilse wrote:
> > If you want to strip down documentation,
> > locales and stuff, have a look at the scripting facilities of portage:
> > e.g. put this into /etc/portage/bashrc (on the "master" chroot, if you
> > go with a buildhost):
> > ---snip
> > post_src_install() {
> >  rm -rf image/usr/share/man
> >  rm -rf image/usr/share/doc
> > }
>
> Or use FEATURES="nodoc noman noinfo", provided you are using a recent
> enough portage, I'm unsure of when this was introduced.

It's was introduced before portage-2.0.50. :)

http://sources.gentoo.org/viewcvs.py/gentoo-src/portage/bin/ebuild.sh?r1=1.145&r2=1.146

-- 
Bo Andresen

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Re: [gentoo-user] Mini Gentoo in VMWare

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 6 Nov 2006 18:20:10 +0100, Bo Ørsted Andresen wrote:

> > Or use FEATURES="nodoc noman noinfo", provided you are using a recent
> > enough portage, I'm unsure of when this was introduced.  
> 
> It's was introduced before portage-2.0.50. :)

OK, so "recent enough" >= "2.0.50" :)

It's still not mentioned in /etc/make.conf.example :(


-- 
Neil Bothwick

.                            <-Stealth Tagline

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Re: [gentoo-user] Mini Gentoo in VMWare

[Bo Ørsted Andresen]

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On Monday 06 November 2006 19:53, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Nov 2006 18:20:10 +0100, Bo Ørsted Andresen wrote:
> > > Or use FEATURES="nodoc noman noinfo", provided you are using a recent
> > > enough portage, I'm unsure of when this was introduced.
> >
> > It's was introduced before portage-2.0.50. :)
>
> OK, so "recent enough" >= "2.0.50" :)
>
> It's still not mentioned in /etc/make.conf.example :(

It's in `man make.conf`. The example was never intended to be complete.

-- 
Bo Andresen

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Re: [gentoo-user] Mini Gentoo in VMWare

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 6 Nov 2006 20:23:49 +0100, Bo Ørsted Andresen wrote:

> > It's still not mentioned in /etc/make.conf.example :(  
> 
> It's in `man make.conf`.

I know.

> The example was never intended to be complete.

Still surprising though, when much newer features are documented in the
example file.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Error reading FAT record: Try the SKINNY one? (Y/N)

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Re: [gentoo-user] Mini Gentoo in VMWare

[Bo Ørsted Andresen]

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On Monday 06 November 2006 23:52, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Nov 2006 20:23:49 +0100, Bo Ørsted Andresen wrote:
> > > It's still not mentioned in /etc/make.conf.example :(
> >
> > It's in `man make.conf`.
>
> I know.
>
> > The example was never intended to be complete.
>
> Still surprising though, when much newer features are documented in the
> example file.

Personally I don't think these features are important enough that they should 
be in the example rather than just the man page, but I'm not a portage dev so 
my opinion doesn't really matter. If you think it should be in the example 
then I suggest you file a bug about it. It may be marked WONTFIX but then 
again maybe it'll be fixed. I guess we won't know unless someone requests 
it... :)

-- 
Bo Andresen

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RE: [gentoo-user] Re: Mini Gentoo in VMWare

[Daevid Vincent]

I use a Gentoo VM for a lot of LAMP dev work, and I can tell you it's kind
of painful to upgrade packages with all the compiling. VMWare is slower than
normal to compile, mostly due to disk I/O. Since each HD is a big-ass file. 

A few optimizations I might suggest:

Partition a dedicated physical hard drive into chunks and use VMWare's "raw"
disk so you have real hardware/hard disks. I'd suggest a very fast SCSI
drive for the best performance since you're running several VMs.

Also, look into the VMWare server version which uses the raw iron a bit
better as it's dedicated to running many VMs. 

I find that more RAM on VMWare has a point of deminishing returns. I have a
VM that I dedicate 512MB of my 2GBs and honestly it feels slower than when I
give it 128-256MB only. It may be a WinXP thing that it's not efficiently
using the RAM right or something.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Trenton Adams [mailto:trenton.d.adams@gmail.com] 
> Sent: Sunday, November 05, 2006 9:19 PM
> To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Mini Gentoo in VMWare
> 
> Yes, VMWare is fit for the task, simply because I would be using it on
> a windows machine.  Unless there is something better for a windows
> machine?
> 
> Thanks for the hints.
> 
> On 11/3/06, Harm Geerts <harmgeerts@home.nl> wrote:
> > On Friday 03 November 2006 06:43, Trenton Adams wrote:
> > > Hi Guys,
> > >
> > > Has anyone here played with minimalizing everything for 
> use in vmware?
> > >
> > > Basically what I want to do is create a series of VERY 
> tiny VMs that
> > > are all independent of each other, which provide one service.  For
> > > instance, I might put apache on one VM, and tomcat on 
> another, and so
> > > on.  Obviously, I would want their memory usage to be absolutely
> > > minimized, seeing that I would like to run them all on 
> one computer.
> > > I would probably provide them 64M-128M of RAM each, for 
> their specific
> > > service.  Perhaps a little more if really required.
> > >
> > > Is there really anything that I should worry about?  
> Perhaps I should
> > > just DO IT?
> >
> > Nick[1] made a post about minimizing Gentoo a while back.
> > But that topic was mainly about the disk usage.
> > I suppose you would benefit from a system that uses the -Os 
> flag to create
> > small binairies.
> >
> > But do you think vmware is fit for such a task?
> > vmware is a big strain on resources itself.
> > You might want to have a look at xen[2] instead.
> >
> > [1] 
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/160899/focus=160903
> > [2] http://www.xensource.com/xen/xen/index.html
> > --
> > gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> >
> >
> -- 
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
> 

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Mini Gentoo in VMWare

[Trenton Adams]

Your slowness could be due to not telling vmware to allocate all memory into physical memory, and not using a full sized disk image.  It seems like vmware accesses the blocks directly, when you pre-allocate.  And if the image gets fragmented, vmware warns you about it, so that you can ask it to defragment it.  But, if you're using a resizable image, then you may see some slowness.

I bench marked the disk running gentoo linux on a Dell D820 notebook, in native mode.  I copied that same gentoo over to a VM, and ran into in windows on the same D820 Notebook, and got slightly better performance results, by about 2-5 M/sec.  I used "bonnie++ -c 5 -s 4096 -r 768 -u someone".  I haven't tried it on a dynamically re-sizable disk.  These results indicate to me that VMware is using direct block access, and bypassing the file system.  Either that, or simply keeping it un-fragmented makes a big difference.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  !
   

As far as compiling slower, I've found there is a very MINOR difference between a real machine, and a VM.

On 11/7/06, Daevid Vincent <daevid@daevid.com> wrote:
> I use a Gentoo VM for a lot of LAMP dev work, and I can tell you it's kind
> of painful to upgrade packages with all the compiling. VMWare is slower than
> normal to compile, mostly due to disk I/O. Since each HD is a big-ass file.
> 
> A few optimizations I might suggest:
> 
> Partition a dedicated physical hard drive into chunks and use VMWare's "raw"
> disk so you have real hardware/hard disks. I'd suggest a very fast SCSI
> drive for the best performance since you're running several VMs.
> 
> Also, look into the VMWare server version which uses the raw iron a bit
> better as it's dedicated to running many VMs.
> 
> I find that more RAM on VMWare has a point of deminishing returns. I have a
> VM that I dedicate 512MB of my 2GBs and honestly it feels slower than when I
> give it 128-256MB only. It may be a WinXP thing that it's not efficiently
> using the RAM right or something.
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Trenton Adams [mailto:trenton.d.adams@gmail.com]
> > Sent: Sunday, November 05, 2006 9:19 PM
> > To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
> > Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Mini Gentoo in VMWare
> >
> > Yes, VMWare is fit for the task, simply because I would be using it on
> > a windows machine.  Unless there is something better for a windows
> > machine?
> >
> > Thanks for the hints.
> >
> > On 11/3/06, Harm Geerts <harmgeerts@home.nl> wrote:
> > > On Friday 03 November 2006 06:43, Trenton Adams wrote:
> > > > Hi Guys,
> > > >
> > > > Has anyone here played with minimalizing everything for
> > use in vmware?
> > > >
> > > > Basically what I want to do is create a series of VERY
> > tiny VMs that
> > > > are all independent of each other, which provide one service.  For
> > > > instance, I might put apache on one VM, and tomcat on
> > another, and so
> > > > on.  Obviously, I would want their memory usage to be absolutely
> > > > minimized, seeing that I would like to run them all on
> > one computer.
> > > > I would probably provide them 64M-128M of RAM each, for
> > their specific
> > > > service.  Perhaps a little more if really required.
> > > >
> > > > Is there really anything that I should worry about?
> > Perhaps I should
> > > > just DO IT?
> > >
> > > Nick[1] made a post about minimizing Gentoo a while back.
> > > But that topic was mainly about the disk usage.
> > > I suppose you would benefit from a system that uses the -Os
> > flag to create
> > > small binairies.
> > >
> > > But do you think vmware is fit for such a task?
> > > vmware is a big strain on resources itself.
> > > You might want to have a look at xen[2] instead.
> > >
> > > [1]
> > http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/160899/focus=160903
> > > [2] http://www.xensource.com/xen/xen/index.html
> > > --
> > > gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> > >
> > >
> > --
> > gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> >
> >
> 
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
> 
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