Virtualization and pricing

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gaia
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Virtualization and pricing

Unread post by gaia »

In a kvm/qemu virtualization environment, if I have ASL on the host and on 1 VPS do I need two licenses?

Thanks
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mikeshinn
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Re: Virtualization and pricing

Unread post by mikeshinn »

Thank you for the question, you are correct. You need two licenses. Two standard ASL licenses. A VPS license will not work for you, KVM is not a VPS technology.

If you are using a VPS technology, like openvz or Virtuzzo you need a VPS license.

If you are using Virtual Machine technology like KVM, QEMU, VMWare, etc. then you need a standard ASL license.

The key difference is that VPS "servers" do not have their own kernel. They share the host servers single kernel. So VPS systems can not install the ASL kernel, and inherit the host servers kernel (and all its vulnerabilities).

Virtual Machines, like vmware, kvm, qemu, vserver, esx, etc. do allow you to install your own kernel, so you can secure the VM against kernel attacks at the virtual server level (even if the host server is not secured against these issues). So if you want to secure the kernel in these virtual machines, you need to get a standard ASL license.
gaia
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Re: Virtualization and pricing

Unread post by gaia »

mikeshinn wrote:Virtual Machines, like vmware, kvm, qemu, vserver, esx, etc. do allow you to install your own kernel, so you can secure the VM against kernel attacks at the virtual server level (even if the host server is not secured against these issues). So if you want to secure the kernel in these virtual machines, you need to get a standard ASL license.
but if the host gets rooted they can enter the VM... so I do need two licenses.
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mikeshinn
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Re: Virtualization and pricing

Unread post by mikeshinn »

Yes, you need two licenses. Two standard ASL licenses. A VPS license will not work on a KVM node.
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