RE: [Xen-users] Bare Metal Installation of Xen

[Chris de Vidal <chris@xxxxxxxxxx>]

--- "Petersson, Mats" <Mats.Petersson@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Is there a documented approach somewhere for performing an 
> > unattended 'bare metal' install of Xen?
(...)
> Yes, the Service OS (Dom0) is executing ON TOP OF Xen. But Xen in itself
> isn't an operating system [1], so you do need something that will allow
> you to use the system living on top of Xen, and since you'd have a
> chicken/egg situation if you installed Xen on it's own "first", it's
> makes life much easier for the Xen developers to install a Linux
> distribution first, and then install the Xen files and insert a
> Xen-boot-line in the boot-configuration afterwards... Once you boot
> using this new line in the boot config, you will have Xen loaded first,
> then the Xen-Linux [2] on top of it.
> 
> [1] Obviously, it's sort of an OS-kernel, but it doesn't have drivers
> for much of anything (serial ports, VGA-Text-mode, keyboard is about
> it), so you do need something that is capable of talking to disks,
> network, sound cards, advanced graphics cards, etc.
> 
> [2]The service OS doesn't HAVE to be Linux. As long as the service OS
> can talk to Xen, it's fine to use ANY OS. It's just much harder to
> modify for example Windows to match.

Great explaination.

To more directly address the first question, has anyone built a "host" OS 
(Dom0) + Xen kernel CD
for unattended bare-metal installs?  That would *rock* for disaster recovery 
and quick server
provisioning.  I guess one could use the Xen LiveCD huh?

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