What is Ganeti
Ganeti is a cluster virtual server management software tool built on top of existing virtualization technologies such as Xen or KVM and other Open Source software.
Ganeti requires pre-installed virtualization software on your servers in order to function. Once installed, the tool will take over the management part of the virtual instances (Xen DomU), e.g. disk creation management, operating system installation for these instances (in co-operation with OS-specific install scripts), and startup, shutdown, failover between physical systems. It has been designed to facilitate cluster management of virtual servers and to provide fast and simple recovery after physical failures using commodity hardware.
Features
Ganeti provides the following features for managed instances:
- Support for Xen virtualization:
- Support for PVM and HVM instances
- Live migration support
- Virtual console (on PVM) or VNC (on HVM) to control instances
- Support for virtio or emulated devices
- Support for KVM virtualization: (from Ganeti 2.0)
- Live migration support
- Support for fully virtualized instances
- Support for semi-virtualized instances (kernel residing on the host)
- Support for VNC or serial access
- Support for virtio or emulated devices
- Recommended cluster size 1-40 physical nodes
- Disk management:
- Plain LVM volumes
- Files (from Ganeti 2.0)
- across-the-network raid1 (using DRBD) for quick recovery in case of physical system failure
- Instance disk partitioning supported from Ganeti 2.0
- Export/import mechanism for backup purposes or migration between clusters
Mailing list: ganeti@googlegroups.com for user discussions and ganeti-devel@googlegroups.com for Ganeti development.
Documentation
The documentation for the current version is available on the ganeti doc project, first recommended to read are: