Re: [Xen-users] XenU installs

[Tim Post <tim.post@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2007-06-05 at 18:38 +0100, Mark Williamson wrote:
> 
> It'd be kinda nice if there were a standardised spec for "how to boot an ISO 
> in a paravirt VM".  This would require some kind of agreement between the 
> distributors to do things in a uniform way, but it would move us closer to 
> a "just works" type setup - surely a good thing.  It seems relatively 
> unfortunate for the install procedure for each paravirt guest to be slightly 
> different so that the user or tools has to understand those differences.
> 

Its not too difficult to template in many kinds of ways. We're about to
start a project for sqlite => etc/ abstraction. Store the values of etc/
text configs in sqlite , command line args produce distro specific
config files. 

/etc/network/interfaces => /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/* 

.. or similar scenarios is what we have in mind. Or, make eth0 xenbr0
with appropriate instructions to brctl by just updating the database.

The other thought was to just take a small non blocking http server
listening on localhost to gid wheel, and run it as a service. Kind of up
in the air still, any feedback would be cool. I'd rather just fork once
on dom0. The query would just be a http
GET /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifconfig-eth0 , this may be the less
confusing route. I like switches, I'm weird.  

Hooks for HG would also be cool, especially the obvious revert and
clone.

As for strapping guests "ready to rock with LAMP" , debootstrap does the
best job on the most different platforms in my experience. rpmstrap is
broken (or was last I checked) because nobody has updated the rpm list
since centos 3 / fc *2* I believe? 

If you really want to be able to configure any os from any os for a
paravirt guest, you need some kind of meta package ' Rosetta stone '. I
can't say that one doesn't exist, but I've yet to find one that includes
all popular distros.

A link to prove me wrong would of course be welcome! I often wonder what
the best way to make one would be. 

You could get a list of rpms or debs or anything into a db, but you need
constant meta package names to relate to them especially when wrapping 3
+ packaging methods. Otherwise whats the point of a relational db?
Having dist specific frequently updated text lists of package names is
ugly. 

Anything beyond that, i.e. quirks with rpm on this, or aptitude on that
can probably be fixed without too much fuss. I've seen enough people
blogging about one or the other to know that everything works everywhere
if given proper love.

Best,
--Tim

> Cheers,
> Mark
> 
> On Tuesday 05 June 2007, Andre Grove wrote:
> > hello all,
> >
> > i've been messing around with Xen, and it seems that most HOWTOs
> > document installs by using prebuilt images.
> > i'm rather anal about my installs though, and i want to be able to
> > boot CDs (or ISO images). i've tried the following config:
> >
> > kernel = "/boot/vmlinuz-2.6-xen"
> > memory = 128
> > name = "andre_test_01"
> > cpus = "1" # leave to Xen to pick
> > vif = [ 'bridge=xenbr0' ]
> > disk = [ 'file:/xendisks/andre_test.img,sda1,w',
> > 'file:/xendisks/andre_test_swap.img,sda2,w',
> > 'file:/xendisks/install-isoS/install.iso,hdc,r' ]
> > ramdisk = "/boot/initrd.img-2.6.16.33-xen"
> > boot = "d"
> >
> > the boot = d is apparently used to boot the cdrom, but it doesn't work
> > for me. i've tried copying the vmlinuz and initrd.
> >
> > does any one have any ideas?
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Xen-users mailing list
> > Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
> 
> 
> 


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