Re: [Xen-devel] Documetation - The Phantom Menace

[Pasi Kärkkäinen <pasik@xxxxxx>]

On Tue, Oct 12, 2004 at 02:55:41PM +0000, Mark A. Williamson wrote:
> Guys,
> 
> Documentation is one of the main hurdles we'd like to get out of the way 
> before releasing 2.0.  Stephan and I are at this very minute grokking the 
> docs to start bringing things up to date.
> 
> We'd still like all the help we can get:
> * If you've written any howtos, we'd like to incorporate them into the main 
> user manual.
> * If there's anything you'd really like to see in the docs then please tell 
> us 
> (if you can contribute the start of some text, that'd be even better!).
> * If you find any mistakes, please report them.
> * If you found there were any special steps involved in getting Xen working 
> on 
> your distro, beyond what the docs describe, please let us know.  We'd like to 
> cover any distro-specific quirks...
> 

Here's some info how to install Debian 3.1 (sarge) for xen:

1) Set up Xen 2 and test it's working OK and you can run domains with it.

        You can find help for this from the Xen Documentation.

2) Create disk images for root-fs and swap
        
        dd if=/dev/zero of=/path/diskimage bs=1024k count=size_in_megabytes
        dd if=/dev/zero of=/path/swapimage bs=1024k count=size_in_megabytes

        If you're going to use this filesystem/diskimage only as a "template" 
for
        other vm diskimages, something like 300 MB should be enough.. (of 
course it 
        depends what kind of packages you are planning to install to the 
template)

3) Create filesystem and swap to the images

        mkfs.ext3 /path/diskimage
        mkswap /path/swapimage

4) Mount the diskimage for installation

        mount -o loop /path/diskimage /mnt/disk

5) Install Debian using debootstrap

        Make sure you have debootstrap installed on the host. If you are
        running Debian sarge (3.1 / testing) or unstable you can install it by
        running apt-get install debootstrap.

        Install debian base to the diskimage:

        debootstrap --arch i386 sarge /mnt/disk 
http://ftp.<countrycode>.debian.org/debian

        Or you can of course use any other Debian http/ftp mirror you want.

6) When debootstrap finishes (successfully) modify settings

        chroot /mnt/disk /bin/bash

        Edit the following files using vi or nano and make needed settings:

        /etc/hostname
        /etc/hosts
        
        /etc/resolv.conf
        /etc/network/interfaces
        /etc/networks

        Set up access to the services
        /etc/hosts.deny
        /etc/hosts.allow
        /etc/inetd.conf

        Add Debian mirror to:   
        /etc/apt/sources.list

        And create fstab like this:
        /dev/sda1       /       ext3    errors=remount-ro       0       1
        /dev/sda2       none    swap    sw      0       0
        proc            /proc   proc    defaults        0       0

        logout

7)      Umount the diskimage

        umount /mnt/disk

8)      Create Xen 2 configuration file for the new domain. You can use the
        example-configurations coming with xen as a template.

        Make sure you have the following set up:

        disk = [ 'file:/path/diskimage,sda1,w', 'file:/path/swapimage,sda2,w' ]
        
        root = "/dev/sda1 ro"

        I used the default Xen Linux-2.4.27-XenU kernel for the domain.

9)      Start the new domain

        xm create -f domain_config_file

        Check that the new domain is running:
        xm list

10)     Attach to the console of the new domain.
        You should see something like this when starting the new domain:

        "Started domain testdomain2, console on port 9626"
        
        There you can see the ID of the console: 26. You can also
        list the consoles with "xm consoles". (ID is the last two digits of
        the portnumber.)

        Attach to the console:

        xm console 26

        or by telnetting to the port 9626 of localhost.

11)     Log in and run base-config

        As a default there's no password for the root.

        Check that everything looks OK, and the system started without
        errors. Check that the swap is active, and the network settings are
        correct.

        Run /usr/sbin/base-config to set up the Debian settings.

        Set up the password for root using passwd.

12)     Done. You can exit the console by pressing ctrl + ]


If you need to create new domains, you can just copy the contents of
the "template"-image to the new disk images simply by mounting the template
and the new image, and using cp -a or tar and then modify the image-specific
settings (hostname, network settings, etc).

Hope this helps somebody. There might be errors in the text.. please feel
free to correct :)

Someone on the xen-devel list was also doing automatic debian-installation
script based on configuration templates.. Check that also.

-- Pasi Kärkkäinen
       
                                   ^
                                .     .
                                 Linux
                              /    -    \
                             Choice.of.the
                           .Next.Generation.


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