Re: [Xen-users] Deploying new VMs

[Grant McWilliams <grantmasterflash@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 10:41 AM, Lloyd Dizon <thecarrionkind@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi,
I 'm wondering how do you guys deploy new VMs with Xen.

Currently I just copy a basic config file and root filesytem and do
whatever additional configuration is needed, manually.

I surely can make this faster with scripts or maybe do an automatic
network install.

Maybe there are new tools that are available that I'm not aware of?
I'm currently using the latest SuSE version update.
VMware had/has this nice deployment tool with templates.

Thanks for any hints or suggestions.


regards,
Lloyd

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Lloyd,

 ÂI don't use straight Xen anymore but I used to have a 1000 line script that managed large groups of machines (creating, deleting) etc. It was based around what I did in this tutorialÂhttp://grantmcwilliams.com/item/410-centos-5-virtual-machine-64-bit-installation-on-xenÂwhich is fairly easy to script. This is for a new installation. If you host the OS repo yourself inside of a Xen network so if your VMs are accessing it across the virtual network the install goes VERY fast.Â

However, another method I used in my script was to create "Golden Images" using the tutorial above along with some manual tweaking after it was installed. Then my script would make copies of the base disk image, and copies of the xen config changing the MAC address and whatever else needed to be changed using sed. Then it would start the VM up.Â

The bottleneck to method #1 is that it takes time to install. The bottleneck to method #2 is that it takes time to copy disk images. For 8GB OS images I used to give it about 10 minutes to be safe. If I started more than 4 at a time I'd get all kinds of blktap issues that would eventually require a reboot. Also using sparse disk images isÂdefinitelyÂworth your time if you're going to be cloning them. The tutorial shows you how to do that with dd.

I now use XCP and creating a new VM from scratch and booting it takes under 1 minute.

Grant McWilliams
http://grantmcwilliams.com/

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use Windows."Â
Now they have two problems.

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