Hello list;
Until recently I have been starting my HVM, “W2K3
R2 SP2” DomU’s using a .hvm configuration file with the “xm
create domu.hvm” command. Along with this I have been using
Virt-manager to interface with the machines. I noticed, what I’m
sure others have noticed, that when a DomU is shutdown, “xm destroy domu”
or “xm destroy dom#” the machine disappears from the
Virtual-Manager. Somewhere along the way I read that in late versions of
Virt-Manager it is possible to see both running and stopped machines. I
did some research and found:
http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/enterprise-linux/fedora-7-xen-first-look
Under the “not so good but necessary” the author
describes how the Fedora team have “followed in the Xensource model and
begun to store all VM configuration details in a database, referred to as the
Xenstore.” The article goes on to suggest that if you have a
running machine, presumably created with the .hvm file, you can use “virsh
dumpxml” to create an XML dump of the XML config and then using “virsh
define” with the resulting xml file to define the same machine so that it
is stored in the Xenstore. I tried this and it works – I can see my
running and shutdown machines in the virtual-manager using this method and
start machines from the virt-manager without having to issue “xm create”.
(cool). But I also noticed something else. When I booted my first
W2K3 HVM DomU which is running James’ 0.9.9 GPLPV drivers I get a plug
and play event on initial login for the “Xen Stub Device Driver –
Virtual Keyboard”. I answered affirmatively to all the prompts and
Windows happily went about installing some drivers and completed unceremoniously.
I looked in device manager under, well under a lot of sections, but in
particular “human interface devices” but could only find the
standard keyboard. I wasn’t sure if this was a one off (perhaps all
the drivers didn’t install the first time on this relatively new DomU) so
I booted another one, that has been around a bit longer, (booted multiple times)
and it exhibited the same behaviour. btw: (I am running Xen 3.2.1
on Centos 5.1)
My questions are:
1)
Can anyone point me to more information about how the
Xenstore is used to manage DomU configuration? In particular with regards
to how virt-manager uses it exactly?
2)
Why was a new hardware device found when I used the
xenstore instead of the .hvm file using the GPLPV drivers? (note I did
not try without the drivers.. why would anyone want to do that J ) Which leads to..
3)
What is the difference between starting the machines
using xm create or from “run” in Virtual Manager?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
Best Regards
Geoff
