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RE: [Xen-users] Xen running Windows
Have a look at the attached post to this list by Michael Walker a few days ago.
Have a nice day,
Maxim Rozin
BenefIT-technologies
Mobile: +972-54-5409444
Tel: +972-3-9238888
-----Original Message-----
From: xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mattia Martinello
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 12:25 AM
To: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Xen-users] Xen running Windows
Hi,
I wish to install Xen on an IntelVT machine to run Windows in a domU
environment.
Where I can find some docs about installing Windows on Xen?
Thank you very much and goodbye.
Mattia.
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--- Begin Message ---
Folks,
I've spent quite a few weeks trying to get a IntelVT enabled
system loaded with a Xen and then running a version of Windows
with the IntelVT support.
After many trials and tribulations - I thought it would be worth
writing up a little report in the hopes that it will help others
down this path. Note I'm not going into the full details of how
to get a Xen system up & booted - there is plenty of information
on that in the WiKi's - I'm just offering what I thought was
interesting in getting Windows booted in a IntelVT/HVM enabled
system.
1) Get a IntelVT enabled system and enable the settings in the BIOS:
First you need a IntelVT enabled system, I have a very nice
server system with 4 dual core Intel Xeon processors. The
Xeon's have the vmx capabilities, but you *must* also make
sure that the IntelVT capabilities are enabled via the BIOS.
The one other gotchya I ran into was that for my system after
re-setting the BIOS you must power-cycle the system for the
updated settings to take place. If you do not, on this
system, even though the BIOS says VT is enabled Xen will not
recognize it as such (that cost me a couple of days =O).
2) Base system - Fedora Core 5 + Xen3.0-Unstable
My base system was Fedora Core 5. I tried to use the Xen3.0.2
which is distributed with FC5, but that failed on this system,
each time I attempted to boot a VT enabled system the whole
system would crash. No error to the console, nothing left for
me to examine - just reboot.
So - I next pulled the latest Xen-unstable development tree down
using Mercurial and created a build workspace. I installed
the additional packages required for a HVM enabled build
(libvncserver & dev86) and completed the default 'make world'
followed by 'make install' and booted to that new Xen
hypervisor and Domain0 kernel.
3) Once system has booted Xen - verify that VMX is enabled.
Once the Xen0 enabled kernel has booted - you can verify that
your Xen has found the IntelVT enabled bits by doing the
following:
[root@vermont ~]# xm dmesg | grep VMX
(XEN) VMXON is done
(XEN) VMXON is done
(XEN) VMXON is done
(XEN) VMXON is done
(XEN) VMXON is done
(XEN) VMXON is done
(XEN) VMXON is done
(XEN) VMXON is done
(XEN) VMXON is done
(XEN) VMXON is done
(XEN) VMXON is done
(XEN) VMXON is done
(XEN) VMXON is done
(XEN) VMXON is done
(XEN) VMXON is done
(XEN) VMXON is done
[root@vermont ~]#
You should have a VMXON for each reported processor. If you
have any other messages visit your BIOS settings. There is
no reason to go any further until you have VMXON reported -
it just isn't going to work.
4) Create the Xen disk image & find a install media
I created my Xen enabled disk image as follows:
# mkdir -p /root/xenimages
# cd /root/xenimages
# dd if=/dev/zero of=WS128.img bs=1M count=4096
For my install media I chose to use a iso image of the
WinXP - ServicePack2 CDRom. I copied this into the
/root/xenimages.
For some reason my cdrom device was not available when I was
booted into the Xen-unstable kernel. If it had been, I also
could have installed with the media in the CDRom drive.
4) Create a HVM enabled Xen Configuration
I created mine by starting with /etc/xen/xmexample.hvm and
then modifying it as appropriate. Following is my Xen
configuration file:
[root@vermont xen]# cat /etc/xen/winXP128
kernel = "/usr/lib/xen/boot/hvmloader"
builder='hvm'
memory = 512
name = "WinXP128"
vcpus=1
pae=0
acpi=0
apic=0
cpus = ""
vif = [ 'type=ioemu, bridge=xenbr0' ]
disk = [ 'file:/root/xenimages/winXP128.img,ioemu:hda,w' ]
on_poweroff = 'destroy'
on_reboot = 'destroy'
on_crash = 'destroy'
device_model = '/usr/lib/xen/bin/qemu-dm'
cdrom='/root/xenimages/en_winxp_pro_with_sp2.iso'
boot='d'
sdl=0
vnc=1
vncviewer=0
stdvga=0
serial='pty'
ne2000=0
[root@vermont xen]#
Note that the "boot='d'" designates that this Xen image
should boot off of the 'cdrom image'. This is required for
the initial boot - and will be changed to "boot='c'" once the
hard drive image has Windows installed on it.
Also note that this image is set to place the console onto a
VNC enabled terminal.
You can also use SDL to access the graphics console - I did
not try this since my system is in a lab and I wanted to
remotely connect to my DomainU images.
5) Boot system and connect to terminal with VNC
Now we're ready to boot the system. Note that the terminal
will be on a VNC console - so once the xen domain is created
you need another window to attach with a vncviewer (either
from the same system or from a different system).
# xm create -c /etc/xen/winXP128
Using config file "/etc/xen/winXP128".
Started domain WinXP128
Then in another terminal (on another machine if you like)
connect to your <server> as follows:
% vncviewer vermont:1
My system is named vermont - you must provide whatever the
server address for your system is. Note that the VNC session
number (:1 above) matches to the Xen Domain ID for
the session you just created. A 'xm list' on the
Domain0 kernel will reveal what your current number is.
6) “Setup is Starting Windows” - install hangs
This one got me for a long time. I think the problem only
occurs on system which have more then 4(maybe 8) cpus - so
not everyone is seeing it. The WindowsXP install starts,
we get the 'BlueScreen' and some nice messages as hardware
is probed out. Then the install just hangs with the last
message displayed in the bottom corner of:
Setup is Starting Windows
I was stuck here for a few days - until the following snippet
was posted to the xen-devel alias to help me past this point:
http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-devel/2006-06/msg00208.html
In that posting is the following little tidbit:
> After passing the 1st screen of windows setup of install XP,
> the first
> thing you'll see at the bottom of the screen is the option to
> press F6
> if you need to install a SCSI or RAID controller. Don't press
> F6. Press
> F5 instead. This will take you to a separate menu of Hardware
> Abstraction Layer's where you can choose an appropriate HAL
> .The choices
> are:
>
> ACPI Multiprocessor PC
> ACPI Uniprocessor PC
> Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC
> Compaq SystemPro Multiprocessor or 100% Compatible PC
> MPS Uniprocessor PC
> MPS Multiprocessor PC
> Standard PC
> Standard PC with C-Step i486
> Other
>
> Select "Standard PC". This will allow the installation to
> complete in
> about 20 minutes.
So - 'press F5' when it says 'press F6'. Whooda thunk
7) Installing via VNC
The next thing to work around is that driving WinXP through
the vncviewer is a little tricky. I found the following
issues:
a) The mouse support is spotty (this is a known issue I've
seen discussed). This means that in order to
do the install and initial setup I had to use just
the keyboard and keyboard shortcuts (tab, ...).
b) The vncviewer doesn't resize with the install window.
At times during the install the graphics window would
resize (standard windows stuff) but the vncviewer did
not resize resulting in part of the window being
truncated in the viewer. I found that if I just quit
the 'vncviewer' and restarted it - it would get the
correct size.
8) Boot from disk image to complete install
Windows Install initially formats your (virtual) hard
drive and copies some files over. It then reboots to that
hard drive to complete the install.
When the system reboots your virtual machine will terminate,
at this point you want to update your Xen configuration
file to boot from the hard drive. So - this required
updating the 'boot' entry in the winXP file as follows:
boot='c'
Then boot the Xen domain and re-attach with VNC:
[root@vermont xen]# xm create -c /etc/xen/winXP128
Using config file "/etc/xen/winXP128".
Started domain WinXP128
And attach with the vncviewer:
% vncviewer vermont:2
Note that I am now attached at ':2' since that is the XenID
this session was assigned on my system (xm list).
8) Once installed - using rdesktop
Don't be too worried about the problems with the VNC console.
You only really need to use it to do the initial install &
setup. Once that is done - you can use Windows Remote Desktop
to connect to your virtual Windows machine. And - on Linux
(and other Unix's) there is a nice RDP client called rdesktop
(www.rdesktop.org).
So - once your system has been installed you can enable the
RemoteDesktop via the following tab in Windows:
ControlPanel->System->Remote tab
Enable that - and you can then connect to your client with
Remote Desktop. At this point you're good to go.
Well - that's it.
I've used the above to install both Windows Server 2003 & Windows
XP clients. I've had multiple WinXP & WS2003 clients running
simultaneously - and they all seems great.
Hope this helps someone.
Cheers,
_Mike_
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