Advantages of running VMware Server on 64bit Linux host

[Dimitri Yioulos]

On Thursday 24 January 2008 10:56 am, Jeff Larsen wrote:
> On Jan 24, 2008 9:39 AM, wolf2k5 <wolf2k5 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Are there any practical advantages of running VMware Server 1.0.x on
> > AMD64/EM64T Linux host with a 64bit OS over a 32bit OS? Is it
> > officially supported?
> > The server is question is a Dell PowerEdge 1950 with two Xeon 5100
> > series dual-core CPUs.
> >
> > Are there any known issues running VMware Server on a x86_64
> > distribution like Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 or better 5?
>
> The primary advantage is that the underlying 64 bit OS gives you
> better access to more RAM. Yes, there is the hugemem kernel for larger
> accessible RAM under 32 bit, but 64 bit is better.
>
> VMware Server 1.0 is a 32 bit application itself, so there will be
> some 32 bit libraries that need to be installed to support it, but it
> works just fine.
>
> We run VMware Server 1.0.4 with great success on CentOS 4 (x86_64).
> I've been very happy with the results on a PE 860 with Quad Core Xeon
> and 8GB RAM. Our VMs are pretty low in their CPU/RAM usage. We have
> seen no issues running 5-6 VMs on that hardware. I expect we could
> probably double that as long as none of them require heavy processing.
> It's mostly things like mail, web proxy, intranet web server, etc. for
> smallish offices (20-40 people).
>
> Jeff
>


I'm running 32-bit CentOS 3.8, 4.5, and 5.1 on a number of machines, both 
stand alone and virtual.  On the 3.8 and 4.5 boxes, I have had to use the 
hugemem kernel in order to access more than 4GB RAM.  I have CentOS 5.1 
powering 5.1 virtual machines on a PE 6950.  On this box, the host system is 
running the PAE kernel (which wasn't available for CentOS 3 and 4), making 
all 16GB RAM are available.

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.