`What are VIRTUAL Linux servers running on ?

[David Ball]

Lately I've seen ads for what are called Virtual Private Servers.
These seem to be Linux running in some sort of virtual partition on
a machine. I've also seen somewhere that the same thing is offered
on solaris boxes. You have root access to the virtual machine and
can install software on them just like a dedicated server, but
you're actually sharing a physical machine with other virtual
private servers.

Does anyone know what hardware and OS these virtual linux machines
are really running on ? What kind of reliability do they have ? Are
there just a few virtual linuxes running on a physical server or is
it some really huge server with dozens or even hundreds of virtual
linux kernels running on it?

You can find one example of the kind of server I'm asking about at
http://www.datapipe.com/privateserver.htm .

TIA.

-- David Ball

[James Suttie]

On Fri, 10 Aug 2001 23:07:47 -0700, David Ball <db...@bnb-lp.com> wrote:
>Does anyone know what hardware and OS these virtual linux machines
>are really running on ? What kind of reliability do they have ? Are
>there just a few virtual linuxes running on a physical server or is
>it some really huge server with dozens or even hundreds of virtual
>linux kernels running on it?
>

I'm not sure about hardware but I've had two VSs from http://www.dsvr.co.uk
for a couple of years now, they're using RH and have been super-reliable.
I'm pretty sure that DSVR released free (not sure if it was open source)
software to set up VSs on your own server - I'll look into it if you like.

[David Ball]

On Sat, 11 Aug 2001 12:36:05 +0100, jsu...@iname.com (James Suttie)
wrote:

[snip]

>>
>I'm not sure about hardware but I've had two VSs from http://www.dsvr.co.uk
>for a couple of years now, they're using RH and have been super-reliable.
>I'm pretty sure that DSVR released free (not sure if it was open source)
>software to set up VSs on your own server - I'll look into it if you like.

Thanks. I looked at their site and found a link to www.freevsd.org .
Very interesting stuff.

-- David

[James Suttie]

On Sat, 11 Aug 2001 05:19:56 -0700, David Ball <db...@bnb-lp.com> wrote:
>Thanks. I looked at their site and found a link to www.freevsd.org .
>Very interesting stuff.
>

That's the one, it certainly seems to work very well!

[Jorey Bump]

James Suttie wrote:

IBM also has a project that can host hundreds of virtual Linux servers on a
single mainfraim:

http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/os/linux/index.html