Difference between revisions of "XL"

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(Add a short description of xl and a list of features)
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= Introduction =
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As of Xen 4.1 ''xl'' is the default toolstack supplied as part of the Xen release. The older ''xend'' toolstack is still available in tree but is considered deprecated and may eventually be removed.
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''xl'' is based on the xenlight library (''libxl''), a library designed to provide a common "bottom third" for any Xen toolstack).
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= Features =
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* PV and HVM guests.
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* Basic guest lifecycle operations: create, shutdown, reboot, pause, unpause, list, rename etc.
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* Guest device support, including hotplug and unplug:
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** Network devices (both para-virtualised and emulated)
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** Block devices (both para-virtualised and emulated)
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** Virtual framebuffer, keyboard and mouse both para-virtualised and emulated)
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*** Including SDL, VNC and SPICE output
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** PV console devices
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* Live migration and save/restore of guests,
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* Passthrough of PCI devices to guests.
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* VCPU pinning
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* CPU pools, including cpupool-per-NUMA node.
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* Control of CPU scheduler parameters
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* TMEM
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* XSM/Flash policy control.
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* Control of CPUID features exposed to guests.
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* Support for both the traditional Xen for of ''qemu'' (''qemu-xen-traditional'') and upstream qemu versions (''qemu-xen'')
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= Anti-Features =
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The following are explicitly not supported by ''xl'':
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* Managed Domains (a la ''xm vm-create''). Suitable alternatives: xapi, which is available as part of [[XCP]] or via [[Project Kronos]] or [[http://libvirt.org libvirt]] or some very simple scripting (e.g. the ''xendomains'' initscript).
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* Python code in configuration files. See: [[PythonInXlConfig]]
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= Documentation =
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{{Info|This section contains link to Xen manual pages that are generated from the Xen codebase. They reflect the state of '''xen-unstable.hg'''. We do not yet have versions for specific Xen releases, but will have them in future}}
 
{{Info|This section contains link to Xen manual pages that are generated from the Xen codebase. They reflect the state of '''xen-unstable.hg'''. We do not yet have versions for specific Xen releases, but will have them in future}}
   

Revision as of 11:36, 26 January 2012

Introduction

As of Xen 4.1 xl is the default toolstack supplied as part of the Xen release. The older xend toolstack is still available in tree but is considered deprecated and may eventually be removed.

xl is based on the xenlight library (libxl), a library designed to provide a common "bottom third" for any Xen toolstack).

Features

  • PV and HVM guests.
  • Basic guest lifecycle operations: create, shutdown, reboot, pause, unpause, list, rename etc.
  • Guest device support, including hotplug and unplug:
    • Network devices (both para-virtualised and emulated)
    • Block devices (both para-virtualised and emulated)
    • Virtual framebuffer, keyboard and mouse both para-virtualised and emulated)
      • Including SDL, VNC and SPICE output
    • PV console devices
  • Live migration and save/restore of guests,
  • Passthrough of PCI devices to guests.
  • VCPU pinning
  • CPU pools, including cpupool-per-NUMA node.
  • Control of CPU scheduler parameters
  • TMEM
  • XSM/Flash policy control.
  • Control of CPUID features exposed to guests.
  • Support for both the traditional Xen for of qemu (qemu-xen-traditional) and upstream qemu versions (qemu-xen)

Anti-Features

The following are explicitly not supported by xl:

  • Managed Domains (a la xm vm-create). Suitable alternatives: xapi, which is available as part of XCP or via Project Kronos or [libvirt] or some very simple scripting (e.g. the xendomains initscript).
  • Python code in configuration files. See: PythonInXlConfig

Documentation

Icon Info.png This section contains link to Xen manual pages that are generated from the Xen codebase. They reflect the state of xen-unstable.hg. We do not yet have versions for specific Xen releases, but will have them in future


Document related to xl and xl.cfg Description
xl(1) Xen management tool, based on LibXenlight
xl.cfg(5) XL Domain Configuration File Syntax
xl.cfg(5), disk configuration This document specifies the xl config file format disk configuration option.
xl.cfg(5), network configuration This document specifies the xl config file format vif configuration option.
xl.cfg(5), tsc_mode configuration In Xen 4 a new config option called tsc_mode may be specified for each domain. This document is targeted for Xen users and administrators that may need to select a non-default tsc_mode.