[Xen-users] Re: Bootable LiveDVD w/ Xen that boots Windows Image?

[Christian Tramnitz <chris.ace@xxxxxxx>]

Joshua Kinard wrote:
> Hey all,
>  
> Need to know if ths sounds like a crazy idea or not.  Not really messed 
> with Xen a whole lot, but I have played around with other virtualization 
> technologies, so I'm not 100% if I can do what I'm after.
>  
> Basic gist is, I want to create a small Xen dom0 install, primarily 
> using Debian Lenny 5.0.2, and from it, boot a Windows XP domU instance, 
> but do all of this from a single bootable DVD disc. I think I've got the 
> basics down behind setting up a bootable Linux DVD, as I've built 
> netboots before and found some some scripts which might help.
>  
> The tricky part is going to be the Windows install.  I figure I can 
> install it on a read-write virtual disk, and later package that image up 
> for booting off of the DVD.  The only curiosity is going to be how well 
> Windows takes it, because it scibbles all over the place (Registry 
> mostly) when it boots.  There's a specific application I need to be 
> available when this whole mess boots up.  I won't use said app very 
> often (1-2 times/month), but I don't want to keep an entire Windows 
> install around for it.  I'm thinking it'd be easier to somehow get this 
> onto a bootable medium, and since Windows wasn't designed to boot off of 
> CD and DVD media, I figured that this would be the next best idea.
>  
> Or if people have better ideas, I am all ears...

This should be possible. As posted earlier there already live CDs 
booting Xen and a dom0. For Windows you could use a PE image then and 
boot it from an iso image within dom0's filesystem. Not sure how much 
space a recent Windows PE image takes but I still have some BartPE 
CDs(!) here, so it shouldn't be too hard to get this all onto a single 
DVD image.

That being said I would still recommend a USB drive as DVD/CD are slow 
and booting an iso from within an (compreseed) squashfs won't make 
things faster. Also think about security updates, you don't want to boot 
with an unpatched Windows thats a couple of month old...

Best regards,
   Christian


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