This IBM Redbooks publication discusses techniques available for building a large farm of Linux servers running under zVM (a "penguin colony"). It has been developed for system administrators and I/T architects who are responsible for developing optimized solutions for large Linux systems installed on IBM eServer zSeries and S/390 machines.

The book is divided into three parts. We first discuss basic VM concepts and commands, and examine tools available on z/VM that can help you create and monitor a server farm.

We then cover networking features and options, and discuss network high availability issues and solutions. Finally, we demonstrate methods for optimizing virtual Linux server farms (including a novel approach to sharing Linux filesystems among members), and examine central LDAP management. The sample code we discuss is available online.

We also recommend when to use the z/VM IP stack as a router, when to use a virtual Linux IP router, and when to dedicate logical OSA ports to virtual Linux Servers. Linux cloning techniques are also covered.

Part 1 Running Linux under z/VM

Chapter 1 z/VM for beginners

Chapter 2 Directory Maintenance Facility for z/VM

Chapter 3 FCON/ESA for monitoring a penguin colony

Part 2 Networking for Linux on zSeries

Chapter 4 HiperSockets and z/VM Guest LAN

Chapter 5 TCP/IP direct connection

Chapter 6 TCP/IP routing

Chapter 7 Network high availability

Part 3 Creating and managing a penguin colony

Chapter 8 Shared Linux filesystems

Chapter 9 Building a basevol/guestvol penguin colony

Chapter 10 Centralized management using LDAP

Appendix A The Unit Record device driver and utility

Appendix B Installing Red Hat 7.1 with OCO modules

Appendix C Scripts and configuration files

Appendix D Additional material