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VM export for EC2

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Re: VM export for EC2

#21

Post by cperciva »

ajross wrote: post #20
cperciva wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why linux isn't supported? Linux runs on EC2 via Xen/PV, which is a kernel-hypervisor interface not provided by other (non-Xen) virtualization systems. Exporting linux AMIs would require reaching inside your filesystem and modifying your kernel, which is far outside of the scope of anything Amazon would want to do (both in terms of "really complicated" and "liable to accidentally break things"). The same app…

It's not really complicated. If you have, say, a RHEL 6.2 image booting on EC2 you can take the same root filesystem and boot it with a kernel from any other RHEL 6.2 installation with some editing of the grub configuration. But you're right that Amazon isn't really interested in doing that work for you. Linux people who really need this are no doubt already doing it.

Sure, but if you're running a custom kernel you'd need to run a custom non-PV kernel. And there's no remotely sane way for Amazon to figure out what customizations people have made to their kernels.

Re: VM export for EC2

#23

Post by h84ru3a »

cperciva wrote: post #22
h84ru3a wrote: post #16

I'd like to see the dependence on PV-Grub lifted. Maybe Amzn is just not too skilled working with various bootloaders?

What's wrong with PV-grub?

Nothing, if you like GRUB. What if I don't want to use GRUB and I just want to use the OS's native bootloader?

Re: VM export for EC2

#24

Post by cperciva »

h84ru3a wrote: post #23
cperciva wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with PV-grub?

Nothing, if you like GRUB. What if I don't want to use GRUB and I just want to use the OS's native bootloader?

Then don't use paravirtualized Xen. Other boot loaders don't understand Xen/PV.

Re: VM export for EC2

#26

Post by aychedee »

cperciva wrote: post #9
aychedee wrote: post #2

Let's hope they support Linux exports soon then. This solves another problem as well, which is easily moving images around availability zones.

moving images around availability zones Presumably you mean regions here? Within any one region, you can use an AMI in any of the availability zones.

Whoops, yes of course. That's what I meant. Moving images between regions is currently a pain.

Re: VM export for EC2

#27

Post by h84ru3a »

cperciva wrote: post #24
h84ru3a wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing, if you like GRUB. What if I don't want to use GRUB and I just want to use the OS's native bootloader?

Then don't use paravirtualized Xen. Other boot loaders don't understand Xen/PV.

Does "other boot loaders" include NetBSD 5's bootloader?

Re: VM export for EC2

#29

Post by cperciva »

aychedee wrote: post #26
cperciva wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

moving images around availability zones Presumably you mean regions here? Within any one region, you can use an AMI in any of the availability zones.

Whoops, yes of course. That's what I meant. Moving images between regions is currently a pain.

Agreed. Every time I publish a new FreeBSD AMI I spin up 7 instances and run a bunch of "dd | ssh | dd" to send the bits out to the right places.

At this point I have the entire process scripted, and it's still painful.

Re: VM export for EC2

#30

Post by cpg »

How about making it easier to get the sources of the packages (for Linux) so that things are easy to test locally?

Last time I checked (admittedly a little while ago), one had to do API calls through some convoluted way.

I was tempted to script it.

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