Re: [coLinux-devel] Diskimage sharing.

[Digital I. Inc. <ok...@di...>]

Yes, I agree with you and adding CoW isn on my to-do list.
I plan to do it by making generic COW function for Linux.

I mean, UML's COW is an good invention, but specialized for UML.
my COW can be used in all Linuxes, I hope.

             --- Okajima.


>Adding CoW abilities to coLinux may be usefull as well.
>expecially for coLinux on Linux because where CoW is most usefull is for a
>server that serves many virtual servers and It probably makes more sense
>to use a properly tuned linux system for that.
>
>chris
>
>>
>> Hello.
>>
>> I have not checked the whole thread, nor even previous posting,  so maybe
>> same issue has been posted so far, but I think it is good that if we can
>> share same diskimage between many VM technologies, VMware, Xen, qemu,
>> boches, Virtual PC, etc. (UML image is same as coLinux one, unless you
>> use CoW.) I mean, for example you can use VMWare's disk image to coLinux,
>> or vice versa.
>> you have two ways to do it. adding drivers to colinux is one way. the
>> drivers can mount other diskimages. other way is making conversion utils.
>> this is easier to implement, but a little bit waste of your HDD. in this
>> way, you would end up with storing two same diskimages with different
>> format.
>>
>>                   --- Okajima.
>>
>>>Dual booting is possible today using the LABEL feature that most distros
>>>supports (fedora being one of them):
>>>
>>>It works like this:
>>>
>>>1. Mount has a special syntax that lets you specify device labels
>> instead of
>>>real device names. Labels are parts of filesystems (ext2,ext3, probably
>>>others too).
>>>
>>>Assuming your /dev/hda1 has a label "XXX" you can mount it using either
>>>
>>>mount /dev/hda1 mountpoint
>>>mount LABEL=XXX mountpoint
>>>
>>>2. Same syntax can be used in /etc/fstab:
>>>
>>>-----------------------
>>>LABEL=XXX / ext2 defaults 0 0
>>>-----------------------
>>>can be used instead of:
>>>-----------------------
>>>/dev/hda1 / ext2 defaults 0 0
>>>-----------------------
>>>
>>>3. With the introduction of 2.6 kernel colinux supports
>> "/proc/partitions"
>>>which is required for LABELs to work. Previous version had a problem
>> where
>>>/proc/partitions didn't contain cobdX devices so "mount" didn't know
>> what to
>>>scan for labels.
>>>
>>>4. In theory it should be possible to even pass root=LABEL=XXX to kernel
>> at
>>>boot time (this requires initrd), but I was never able to do it.
>>>
>>>5. Labels can be assigned using "e2label" utility. For other FSs there
>>>should be appropriate utilities.
>>>
>>>So assuming you assign all your devices the appropriate labels (this
>> isn't
>>>possible for SWAP partitions, afaik) and modify the appropriate
>> /etc/fstab
>>>entries, you should have a clean dual-bootable linux distro.
>>>
>>>I use it daily, and have no problems with this setup.
>>>
>>>Jarek
>>>----- Original Message -----
>>>From: "Dan Aloni" <da...@co...>
>>>To: "Sarah Tanembaum" <sar...@ya...>
>>>Cc: <col...@li...>
>>>Sent: Saturday, July 03, 2004 3:48 PM
>>>Subject: Re: [coLinux-devel] wish list
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jul 01, 2004 at 01:49:01PM -0400, Sarah Tanembaum wrote:
>>>> > Perhaps you coLinux guru can help me out for the following:
>>>> >
>>>> > Suppose that I have dual boot machine, Windows(partition1) and
>>>> > Linux(partition2). I know that I can convert the Linux installation
>> to
>>>work
>>>> > with coLinux within Windows, but with many things to alter such as
>> the
>>>fstab
>>>> > entry(change the /dev/hd??,/dev/sd??,etc to /dev/cobd? or
>> /dev/cobd/?
>>>and
>>>> > disable loading modules of some devices such as USB, etc ...(dunno
>> how
>>>yet).
>>>>
>>>> You don't actually need to disable module loading, but rather put the
>>>right
>>>> modules for the running coLinux kernel under the /lib/modules
>> directory.
>>>>
>>>> > My question is that is it possible that coLinux do the automatic
>>>> > reconfiguration for such environment e,g:
>>>>
>>>> The next snapshot version of coLinux will include device node
>> aliasing,
>>>> which means that you can configure any cobd to appear as a hd or sda
>>>> partition, and even boot from it (e.g. root=/dev/hda4). Theoretically
>> it
>>>> would be possible to probe the Linux partitions in the Windows side
>> and
>>>> create a proper configuration file. This way you don't need to change
>>>> /ect/fstab.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Dan Aloni
>>>> da...@co...
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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