It’s official — Xen is now live at Linode. It’s been a long road, almost four years in fact, but, with the help of our community, the most recent beta program has finally proven Xen to be ready for action.
What does Xen mean for you? Xen has less overhead compared to UML. Xen Linodes have 4 processors. They support kernel modules. They support 32 and 64 bit kernels. We’re running the latest Xen version (3.2.1) which means we can support paravirt_ops kernels (pv_ops), which means we can have kernels newer than 2.6.18 (which a lot of our competitors force you to use). In short, Linodes will be much, much faster under Xen.
From here on, all new host hardware will be deployed running Xen. New accounts should land on these machines, but there’s still a chance a new Linode will land on a UML host. If this happens, or you are already on a UML host and want to move over, just submit a ticket. However, it’s just a matter of time before all our machines are running on Xen — we’ll announce the upgrade schedule in the next few weeks.
Comments (29)
[…] (which was painless, but required about an hour of down time). It turns out that all of linode is now going to Xen. Based on very simple latecy tests, the box feels much snappier on serving up wiki […]
As someone who has been running in the test environment, let me just say it’s fantastic. Of course, the couple times I’ve needed Linode support, it’s been great as well. Thanks for all the hard work, guys!
Will my ip addresses change if/when I move from UML to Xen? What about the private backend ip; will that one change?
@Harmone Your IPs remain the same as long as you stay within the same data center.
This is great news. Looking forward to faster Linodes under Xen and the upgrade schedule. Thanks for all the hard work guys!
@tasaro:
That sounds lovely. Thanks for everything!
[…] https://www.linode.com/2008/03/28/linodes-in-xen/ […]
Will beta Xen users be migrated to the “production” deployments in the future?
Xen beta hosts will be at the top of the upgrade schedule (which is simply a reboot of the host).
tasaro:
Weren’t different plan sizes mixes on the beta hosts (ie, host56)? If so, do any migrations need to be made?
What kernel should we use after we have migrated to a Xen host? There are a few named “dev ..”. Are they “beta” kernels?
@Harmone You should use “Latest 2.6” unless you have a good reason not to.
@Jacob On the Xen beta boxes, we’ll eventually move the Linodes of different plans onto their respective host server types. If you want to move off sooner submit a ticket. You shouldn’t notice that much of a difference, since we’re using the cpu scheduling to prioritize the larger Linodes. Again, this is only for the participants of the beta test. New accounts are still segmented onto a host that matches their plan.
I moved my Linode from UML in Atlanta to a Xen node in Fremont this past week (after having physically relocated myself to the west coast). My new DNS records were propagated by the time all of my data was transferred (~5hrs).
Big thumbs up to the folks at Linode for a very smooth transition!
So if I can run a 64-bit kernel, how would I upgrade my Debian system to 64-bit? Didn’t realise it was a 64-bit capable environment!
@Simon Rumble: I’m still hacking on 64 bit Xen guest kernels, but it shouldn’t be too much longer. But yes, our environment will support both.
[…] Linode Blog » Linodes in Xen linode fully converting to Xen for hosting. Nifty (tags: xen linode hosting) […]
It’s been mentioned elsewhere that custom kernels may be supported at some point.
Is it possible that at some point native kernels would also be supported, where the host machine has hardware virtualization? This would be very cool in that it would allow standard installs of Linux distros, and would avoid some of the weirdness when Linode’s kernels aren’t quite the in sync with vendors’s kernels/modules/userspace tools.
I’ve been on Xen for two months, and understand why the beta is now concluded. I’ve only had one issue, a hard crash on Dallas52, and not only was it caught and recovered…
But Linode’s staff quickly submitted enough data to get a patch from upstream.
Hi ,
I want to move my Linode from UML to XEN. Is there any risk of data loss or corruption during this migration. How much down time should I expect? Is it possible to time the move during night times when website is less busy?
I also want to keep the same IP address. If possible do not erase the linode on UML for one or two hours after migration so that I can copy and replace any corrupted files or data. It will also allow some time to test the application.
I will submit a ticket for the same. But I hope replies to these queries here will help others as well.
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[…] https://www.linode.com/2008/03/28/linodes-in-xen/ […]
Wow.. We just migrate over to the new XEN hardware… it’s awesome.. huge improvement on performance.. thanks linode!
I migrated my linode today and must say “WOW”. Simply amazing, without any problem. I see huge improvement in performance. Thanks Linode so much!
How can I check whether I am on UML or Xen?
– Akshay
When I’m logged into the Dashboard I can see a Xen icon on the top banner when on a Xen profile, this doesn’t show when for a UML one.
is it possible to use host-in-a-box lxadmin in linode xen?
tia.
[…] couple things changed in the last year. Linode went from UML to Xen, which definitely makes each linode more powerful. My shared hosting company stopped being helpful. […]
Somebody has to ask…. does this mean we might be seeing FreeBSD?
hey tell me how to renew my linode account… Form deferent credit card
Where is the upgrade schedule?