VMware Player

Install VMware Player

Download the installation bundle from VMware’s website. For example, the file we download is: VMware-Player-4.0.0-471780.x86_64.bundle .

Install needed kernel header and devel packages

# yum install kernel-headers kernel-devel

Run the bundle file

# sh VMware-Player-4.0.0-471780.x86_64.bundle

Then just follow the instruction of the GUI of the VMware installer, and you can finish the installation.

For Fedora 16 with kernel 3.1.0 or 3.1.1 with VMware Player 4.0.0, the vmnet module can not compile vmnet module. The VMware-Player-4.0.1-528992.x86_64 fixes this problem and works well with 3.1 kernel. If you want to run VMware Player 4.0.0, the community give patches to it so that it works with kernel 3.1. The patch and script given by Stefano Angeleri works well for me. You may use it quickly by the following commands.

$ wget http://weltall.heliohost.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/vmware8linux31fix.tar.gz
$ tar xf vmware8linux31fix.tar.gz
# sh ./patch-modules_3.1.0.sh

systemctl prints a “[FAILED]” message. But you can ignore it and VMware Player works.

Run VMware Player

Just execute

$ vmplayer

Start a virtual machine just by one command

$ vmplayer /path/to/virtual/machine/config.vmx &

Give the path to the virtual machine configuration file (a .vmx file under the virtual machine’s directory) to vmplayer as its parameter.

Uninstall VMware Player

VMware installer provides the method to uninstall VMware products. We can use this tool

# vmware-installer  --uninstall-product vmware-player

It has a GUI and just follow its instruction to finish the uninstallation.

VirtualBox

Install VirtualBox

We use VirtualBox’s repository for Fedora here. We use VirtualBox-4.1 as the example.

Download the repository file.

# cd /etc/yum.repos.d
# wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/fedora/virtualbox.repo

Install VirtualBox using yum

# yum install VirtualBox-4.1

Run VirtualBox

Just execute

$ virtualbox

Start a virtual machine just by one command

# VBoxManage startvm name_of_the_virtual_machine

VBoxManager use the virtual machine’s name as its parameter. The name can be found from VirtualBox’s virtual machine list.

Uninstall VirtualBox

As installing VirtualBox, we can uninstall (erase) it using yum

# yum erase VirtualBox-4.1

We assume one virtual hard disk (xvda) for this DomU is already set up no matter it is file backed or LVM backed. In this example, we use a LVM backed xvda as the example.

Ubuntu installation media

Unfortunately, the Ubuntu 10.10 Live CD, which is widely used, can’t boot on Xen. We use Ubuntu’s netboot iso image to install Ubuntu. The iso image for Ubuntu 10.10 can be retrieved from:

http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/maverick/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/

The file is mini.iso. It can be directly downloaded by wget:

$ wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/maverick/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/mini.iso

Create Xen DomU configuration file

Then we create a configuration file for this Ubuntu Xen DomU. Please be aware that we make some assumption as aforementioned file address (the disk) and network interface (the vif) here. The ubuntu-install.run file’s content:

name="10.1.1.228"
vcpus=2
memory=2048
vif=['bridge=eth2']
disk = ['file:/lhome/xen/mini.iso,xvdc:cdrom,r', 'phy:vg_xen/vm-10.1.1.228,xvda,w']
bootloader="/usr/bin/pygrub"
on_reboot='restart'
on_crash='restart'

Start Ubuntu Xen DomU and start installation

We can start the DomU now by:

# xm create -c ./ubuntu-install.run

The command line installation interface will appear. We can install Ubuntu 10.10 step by step just following the wizard.

Start DomU

To start the Ubuntu DomU is similar to start the Fedora DomU. Remember to remote the virtual cdrom from “disk” in the configuration file.

As pygrub doesn’t support Ubuntu 10.10 well, we copy the kernel and ramdisk out from Ubuntu’s /boot/ directory to Dom0′s directory and provide DomU the kernel and ramdisk from Dom0′s directory. Please also be aware that Ubuntu requires the ‘root=UUID=…’ kernel parameter. This UUID can also be got from /root/grub/grub.cfg in DomU’s disk. We can simply mount DomU’s disk to Dom0 and get the files and UUID.

This is the configuration file that works well in our cluster:

name="10.1.1.228"
vcpus=2
memory=1024
vif=['bridge=eth2']

kernel="/lhome/xen/vm-10.1.1.228/vmlinuz-2.6.35-28-generic"
ramdisk="/lhome/xen/vm-10.1.1.228/initrd.img-2.6.35-28-generic"
extra='root=UUID=4412ceeb-2c40-452f-82e2-8ddbaca681a9'

disk = ['phy:vg_xen/vm-10.1.1.228,xvda,w']
on_reboot='restart'
on_crash='restart'

Last, enjoy it! More posts on Xen is in Xen Solutions.

Please download the introduction to paravirt_ops pdf file:

introduction-to-pv-ops-v3.pdf

The configuration of machines

Dom0

VCPU: 2 (Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5520  @ 2.27GHz)
Memory: 2GB
Xen and Linux kernel: Xen 3.4.3 with Xenified 2.6.32.13 kernel

DomU

VCPU: 2
Memory: 2GB
Linux kernel: Fedora (2.6.32.19-163.fc12.x86_64)

DomU’s profile:

name="10.0.1.200"
vcps=2
memory=2048
disk = ['phy:vg_xen/vm-10.0.1.150/vmdisk0,xvda,w']
#disk = ['tap:aio:/lhome/xen/vm0-f12/vmdisk0,xvda,w']
#disk = ['file:/lhome/xen/vm0-f12/vmdisk0,xvda,w']

vif=['bridge=eth0']
bootloader="/usr/bin/pygrub"
#extra="single"
on_reboot='restart'
on_crash='restart'

The “disk” lines is changed depending on the driver used.

Benchmark method

We use Bonnie++ to test the performance of I/O:

# bonnie++ -u root

We run bonnie++ on one single VM. We also test the performance change after making a snapshot of LVM for a new VM. For the file backed VMs, we also run two VMs together on the same hard disk and run bonnie++ on them.

Bonnie++’s result is in this format:

Version 1.03e       ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
 -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine        Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP  /sec %CP
localhost.locald 4G 76999  98 107423  21 47522  13 73347  91 159847  16 266.0   0
 ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
 -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
 files  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP
 16 +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++
localhost.localdomain,4G,76999,98,107423,21,47522,13,73347,91,159847,16,266.0,0,16,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++

We only list the last line which contains all the result in the result section in this post.

Benchmark result

LVM backed VBD

localhost.localdomain,4G,76999,98,107423,21,47522,13,73347,91,159847,16,266.0,0,16,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
localhost.localdomain,4G,79588,98,120078,22,46140,13,75343,94,150167,15,248.7,0,16,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
localhost.localdomain,4G,81942,98,113617,22,47736,13,75947,94,152110,15,262.1,0,16,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++

New LVM logical volume made by snapshot

localhost.localdomain,4G,11846,15,12044,2,27133,7,71510,92,141408,14,262.7,0,16,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
localhost.localdomain,4G,12200,15,18147,3,33086,9,66687,89,146550,14,251.9,0,16,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
localhost.localdomain,4G,58521,73,58482,10,33880,9,69399,90,144237,14,267.4,0,16,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
localhost.localdomain,4G,62553,78,57576,11,32755,9,70037,89,143462,14,259.9,0,16,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
localhost.localdomain,4G,66031,84,65640,12,34357,9,66036,86,152171,15,266.4,0,16,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
localhost.localdomain,4G,58666,75,60092,11,34826,9,72821,91,141328,14,259.7,0,16,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++

File backed VBD

vm112,4G,20865,27,23559,4,32913,9,63006,81,128395,13,217.9,0,16,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
vm112,4G,23022,30,18611,3,30086,8,63784,82,125736,13,197.7,0,16,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
vm112,4G,21485,27,20366,3,29587,8,72130,92,140957,14,239.6,0,16,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,30751,52,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
vm112,4G,22375,32,21716,3,30300,8,65488,87,128625,13,221.4,0,16,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
vm112,4G,21968,28,19298,3,29007,8,68469,88,122111,12,222.5,0,16,26967,94,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
vm112,4G,21477,28,20463,3,38395,10,49312,63,154206,15,241.0,0,16,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,32699,56,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++

Two VMs on the same disk running together

A:

vm112,4G,10645,13,9498,1,9606,2,30866,41,86911,8,100.1,0,16,9181,22,20583,6,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
vm112,4G,10623,13,10143,1,10485,2,26013,35,77362,7,116.3,0,16,25701,66,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
vm112,4G,10824,14,9558,1,12028,3,27503,36,57196,5,92.1,0,16,9679,28,+++++,+++,9294,15,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
vm112,4G,15098,19,10485,1,12536,3,22771,30,64679,6,142.2,0,16,32006,82,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
vm112,4G,11315,14,9674,1,12052,3,26453,35,68206,7,121.1,0,16,23789,62,32446,13,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
vm112,4G,11865,15,11564,2,11508,3,24945,34,61946,6,102.6,0,16,13297,34,21805,7,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++

B:

vm119,4G,8963,11,9255,1,10909,3,36446,48,70485,7,125.1,0,16,19701,52,23649,8,9574,16,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
vm119,4G,9074,12,8410,1,12898,3,35266,47,68469,7,107.4,0,16,6585,17,3206,1,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
vm119,4G,9151,13,8664,1,10285,2,20120,28,58011,5,90.9,0,16,22894,59,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
vm119,4G,9053,11,10406,1,12852,3,27618,37,55405,5,108.8,0,16,10144,24,22599,7,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
vm119,4G,8987,11,11464,1,12123,3,19278,26,59274,6,104.8,0,16,5357,13,23010,7,+++++,+++,7922,18,+++++,+++,+++++,+++
vm119,4G,9593,12,11450,1,30598,8,57078,73,119884,12,222.2,0,16,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++

Conclusion

From the evaluation result, we can see that LVM backed VBD of Xen DomU has a much better performance that file backed. From out experiment in our cluster, LVM backed VBD is also quite stable.

Setting Up LVM Backed Xen DomU

Duplicating LVM Backed Xen DomU

Duplicating and Backing Up LVM Backed Xen DomU from a Remote Server

xen-code-disk-v2.pdf

Animation is enabled which may help to understand it.

Update history
Dec. 10, 2010. Update pdf to version 2. Animation is added.

Assumption:

There are Xen DomU virtual machines in LVM logical volume /dev/vg_xen/vm-10.0.0.123/.

Now we want to duplicate the virtual machine vm-10.0.0.123 to vm-10.0.0.124 which we want to stored in logical volume vm-10.0.0.124 in volume group vg_xen. vm-10.0.0.124‘s IP will be 10.0.0.124. There are three steps to duplicate this virtual machine:

1) Duplicate the LVM logical volume

We can duplicate the LVM volume group by making a snapshot of it. The snapshot is a clone of the logical volume. We can make a new logical volume vm-10.0.0.124 as the snapshot of logical volume vm-10.0.0.123:

# lvcreate -L20480 -s -n 'vm-10.0.0.124' /dev/vg_xen/vm-10.0.0.123

Here the size of the new logical volume is 20G as the same of the original one. We may change the content in all the storage space in the new DomU so we create a logical volume that has the same size.

Here we should make sure that vm-10.0.0.123 is power off to avoid the situation there are “write” that is still in DomU’s cache.

2) Change the profile for new DomU

After making the clone of the VBD. We can create a profile for the new DomU. This is the content of /lhome/xen/vm-10.0.0.124/vm.run:

name="10.0.0.124"
cpus=2
memory=2048
disk=['phy:vg_xen/vm-10.0.0.124,xvda,w' ]
vif=[ 'bridge=eth0' ]
bootloader = "/usr/bin/pygrub"
on_reboot = 'restart'
on_crash = 'restart'

The name and disk entry are changed.

3) Start the new virtual machine and configure the new virtual machine

We can start the new DomU and enter it’s console:

# xm create /lhome/xen/vm-10.0.0.124/vm.run
# xm console 10.0.0.213

Or directly:

# xm create -c /lhome/xen/vm-10.0.0.124/vm.run

After logging in vm-10.0.0.124, we can edit the network configuration file:

#  vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

Change the IPADDR to 10.0.0.124 from 10.0.0.123. Then restart eth0:

# ifdown eth0
# ifup eth0

Make sure this interface doesn’t have HWADDR by commenting out the line that specify HWADDR if we use Xen bridge network.

Log out of vm-10.0.0.124 and then use “Ctrl + ]” to exit the xm console.

The new virtual machine vm-10.0.0.124 which is the clone of vm-10.0.0.123 except the IP is running now. This process can be written into one script and the overall time for duplicating the Xen DomU can be as short as number of seconds.

For more tutorials about Xen, please refer to Xen Solution.

Create LVM-backed VBD

Suppose we have a LVM volume group for Xen now: vg_xen.

Let’s create a logical volume of size 20GB named ‘vm-10.0.0.123′ for the VM we will create:

# lvcreate -L20480 -n 'vm-10.0.0.123' vg_xen

Please refer to Creating LVM Volume Group for setting up LVM volume group.

The profile for LVM-backed DomU

Then we can create a profile for LVM-bakced Xen DomU using the LVM logical volume we create above:

name="lvm-backed-domainu"
vcpus=2
memory=2048
disk=['phy:mapper/vg_xen--vm-10.0.0.123,xvda,w']
# disk=['phy:vg_xen/vm-10.0.0.123,xvda,w']
vif=['bridge=eth0']
bootloader="/usr/bin/pygrub"
on_reboot='restart'
on_crash='restart'

or for installing a new DomU:

name="F12INSTALL"
vcpus=2
memory=2048
disk=['phy:mapper/vg_xen--vm-10.0.0.123,xvda,w']
# disk=['phy:vg_xen/vm-10.0.0.123,xvda,w']
vif = [ 'bridge=eth0' ]
kernel = "/lhome/xen/f12install/vmlinuz"
ramdisk = "/lhome/xen/f12install/initrd.img"
on_reboot = 'restart'
on_crash = 'restart'

The virtual machine’s name is “10.0.0.123″, memory is 2G, CPU number is 2, VBD is LV /dev/mapper/vg_xen/vm-10.0.0.123. The “disk” line specifies that we will use logical volume vm-10.0.0.123 in volume group vg_xen for this DomU’s VBD.

Then we can install operating system in the DomU. Please refer to the “Install Fedora 12 Linux via Internet” section in:

Setting Up Stable Xen DomU with Fedora: Unmodified Fedora 12 on top of Xenified Fedora 12 Dom0 with Xen 4.0

for installing Fedora 12 in Xen DomU.

For more tutorials about Xen, please refer to Xen Solution.

Update history:
Sep. 28, 2010. Add how to set up LVM volume group.
Jul. 16, 2011. Specify the section for how to install Fedora 12.

How to set up Xen Dom0 with Xenified Linux kernel in Fedora 12 will be introduced in this post. We use Xen 3.4.3 from xen.org and Xenified Linux kernel 2.6.32.13. This is a very stable Dom0 solution for Fedora 12. Lot’s DomUs have been tested on this platform.

Hardware:

Dom0′s hardware platform:

Motherboard: INTEL S5500BC S5500 Quad Core Xeon Server Board
CPU: 2 x Intel Quad Core Xeon E5520 2.26G (5.86GT/sec,8M,Socket 1366)
Memory: 8 x Kingston DDR-3 1333MHz 4GB ECC REG. CL9 DIMM w/Parity & Thermal Sensor
HD: 4 x WD WD10EARS 1 TB, SATA II 3Gb/s, 64 MB Cache

Linux system:

Fedora 12 x86_64

SELinux is disabled. Please refer here for detail: Disabled SELinux on Fedora.

ext3 is recommended for the file system of disk partition for /boot.

Update the system:

# yum update

The Xen and libvirt packages in Fedora should not be installed to avoid conflict.

# yum erase xen* libvirt

Build and install Xen hypervisor and tools

Download Xen 3.4.3

$ wget http://bits.xensource.com/oss-xen/release/3.4.3/xen-3.4.3.tar.gz
$ tar xf xen-3.4.3.tar.gz

Build Xen and tools

You may need to install packages depended by this. You can try this for solving the dependencies:

# yum install make gcc -y;
yum groupinstall "Development Libraries" -y;
yum groupinstall "Development Tools" -y;
yum install transfig texi2html
dev86 glibc-devel glibc-devel.i686
e2fsprogs-devel gitk mkinitrd
iasl xz-devel bzip2-devel
pciutils-libs pciutils-devel
SDL-devel libX11-devel gtk2-devel
bridge-utils PyXML qemu-common
qemu-img mercurial ed -y

The we can make Xen and Xen tools:

$ make xen
$ make tools

Install Xen and tools

$ make install-xen
$ make install-tools

Build and install xenified Linux kernel

Download Linux kernel 2.6.32.13

$ wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.32.13.tar.bz2
$ tar xf linux-2.6.32.13.tar.bz2

Download 2.6.32 Xen patches v2

$ wget http://gentoo-xen-kernel.googlecode.com/files/xen-patches-2.6.32-2.tar.bz2
$ mkdir xen-patches-2.6.32-2
$ tar xf xen-patches-2.6.32-2.tar.bz2 -C xen-patches-2.6.32-2

Apply Xen patches

Apply all the patches downloaded above following the patch number.

You may need to install patch if it isn’t installed:

# yum install patch

This patch.sh script can be used (we assume the patch and the kernel are in the same directory):

patch.sh:

#!/bin/bash
for P in `ls ../xen-patches-2.6.32-2/6*.patch1 | sort`
do
    patch -p1 -s -i $P
    if [ $? = 0 ]; then
        echo $P applied
    else
        echo "Error processing "$P
        exit 1
    fi
done

Put this script into Linux source directory and execute:

$ sh ./patch.sh

The structure of these directories are as follows:

|
|-linux-2.6.32.13
|    |
|    `- patch.sh
` xen-patches-2.6.32-2
      |
      `- 6*.patch1

Configure Xenified Linux kernel

A working configuration file that I used can be downloaded directly from here:

config-for-xenified-linux-2.6.32.13

Just download this file, put it into the kernel source code file directory and rename it to .config .

Other than use my configuration file, you can also configure it by yourself by using “make menuconfig”.

Make sure you build the kernel with these components enabled:

Processor type and features  --->
 [*] Symmetric multi-processing support
 [*] Support sparse irq numbering
 [*] Enable Xen compatible kernel

Device Drivers  --->
 XEN  --->
 [*] Privileged Guest (domain 0)
 <*> Backend driver support (NEW)
 <*>   Block-device backend driver (NEW)
 <*>   Block-device tap backend driver (NEW)
 < > Block-device tap backend driver 2 (NEW)
 <*> Network-device backend driver (NEW)
 (8)     Maximum simultaneous transmit requests (as a power of 2) (NEW)
 [ ]     Pipelined transmitter (DANGEROUS) (NEW)
 < >     Network-device loopback driver (NEW)
 < > PCI-device backend driver (NEW)
 < >   TPM-device backend driver (NEW)
 <M>   SCSI backend driver (NEW)
 <M>   USB backend driver (NEW)
 <M> Block-device frontend driver
 <M> Network-device frontend driver
 <M>   Network-device frontend driver acceleration for Solarflare NICs (NEW)
 <M> SCSI frontend driver (NEW)
 <M> USB frontend driver (NEW)
 [*]   Taking the HCD statistics (for debug) (NEW)
 [ ]   HCD suspend/resume support (DO NOT USE) (NEW)
 <*> User-space granted page access driver (NEW)
 <*> Framebuffer-device frontend driver (NEW)
 <*>   Keyboard-device frontend driver (NEW)
 [*] Disable serial port drivers (NEW)
 <*> Export Xen attributes in sysfs (NEW)
 (256) Number of guest devices (NEW)
 Xen version compatibility (no compatibility code) --->
 [*] Place shared vCPU info in per-CPU storage (NEW)

Build kernel

$ make -jX

X can be two times of the number of the processor. We use this to let make invoke compilation work in X-way parallel.

Install modules and kernel

# make modules_install install

Configure grub

Add one entry for Xen in /boot/grub/grub.conf. This is an example entry:

title Xen 3.4.3 - Xenified Linux 2.6.32.13
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /xen-3.4.3.gz console=vga vga=ask noreboot
  module /vmlinuz-2.6.32.13 ro root=/dev/mapper/VolGroup-LogVol_root noiswmd LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us
  module /initramfs-2.6.32.13.img

The root and other parameters may be different depending on the configuration.

Make Xend and Xendomains services automatically start when system boots

# cd /etc/init.d/
# chkconfig --add xend
# chkconfig --add xendomains

Check whether Xend and Xendomains services are automatically started in level 3-5:

# chkconfig --list | grep xend

It should be like this:

xend               0:off    1:off    2:off    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off
xendomains         0:off    1:off    2:off    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

Enjoy the fun now!

After booting the system, you can try to use xm to check xen info

# xm info

Then xm command can be used to start up DomUs.

Making the performance more stable

Allocating dedicated CPU core and memory for Dom0 may provide more stable performance for the Xen platform. Please refer to Managing Xen Dom0′s CPU and Memory/ for detailed instruction.

Problems

A list of common problems and tips can be found in Problems during Installing Xen Dom0 in Fedora.

Please refer to
Xen solution
for the DomU solution and more Xen Dom0 solution.

Update history
Sep. 3, 2010. blktap driver is used instead of blktap2; PCI backend driver is disabled.
Sep. 8, 2010. Add install patch; highlight PCI part in make menuconfig.
Sep. 11, 2010. Delete DomU configure file which is not used.
Oct. 19, 2010. Host config in this site.
May. 1, 2011. Fix corrupted URL.
May. 6, 2011. Add directory structure of Xen patch and Kernel src.
Aug. 11, 2011. Add glibc-devel.i686 for depended packages.

The Dom0 platform on top of which this DomU is set up is introduced also in this site. Please refer to

Xen solution

for the latest stable Xen Dom0 solution.

Create file-backed VBD:

The actual space of VBD will be the amount of disk the virtual machine used. And it will be convenient if the virtual machine will be duplicated since the work is just copying the VBD file and changing some configurations.

Create a 20GB sparse file-backed VBD:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/lhome/xen/f11install/vmdisk0 bs=1k seek=20480k count=1

Make a ext4 file system in the disk file:

# mkfs -t ext4 vmdisk0

Install Fedora 11 Linux via Internet

First download the pxeboot kernel of Fedora 11 for installation via Internet. Download vmlinuz and initrd.img from here:

http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/releases/11/Fedora/x86_64/os/images/pxeboot/

We assume these two files are stored in /lhome/xen/f11install/.

Create an installation profile f11.install:

name="F11INSTALL"
vcpus=2
memory=2048
disk = ['file:/lhome/xen/f11install/vmdisk0,xvda,w' ]
vif = [ 'bridge=eth0' ]
kernel = "/lhome/xen/f11install/vmlinuz"
ramdisk = "/lhome/xen/f11install/initrd.img"
on_reboot = 'restart'
on_crash = 'restart'

The virtual machine’s name is “F11INSTALL”, memory is 2G, CPU number is 2, disk, kernel and ramdisk is prepared in the above steps.

Start this virtual machine and connect to this virtual machine’s console and complete the installation:

# xm create -c f11.install

The console can be released by “Ctrl+]”. And it can be reconnected by:

# xm console F11INSTALL

The installation of Fedora 11 will start. The gateway and DNS server should be set according to the network configuration.

The URL of installation source I used during installation is:

http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/releases/11/Fedora/x86_64/os/

After successfully installation of this virtual machine. It can be shut down by:

# xm shutdown F11INSTALL

This virtual machine can be duplicated to get more VMs: How to duplicate Xen DomU virtual machines.

Start DomU

Remember to update your system after the first boot. The 2.6.30 kernel is more stable running as DomU than the default one.

Create a profile vm-10.0.0.123.run for loading the virtual machine:

name="10.0.0.123"
vcpus=2
memory=2048
disk = ['file:/lhome/xen/vm-10.0.0.123/vmdisk0,xvda,w' ]
vif = [ 'bridge=eth0' ]
bootloader = "/usr/bin/pygrub"
on_reboot = 'restart'
on_crash = 'restart'

Here we use the PyGrub (“/usr/bin/pygrub”) as the bootloader. PyGrub starts Linux DomUs with the kernels that lie in the filesystem of the DomU instead of the kernels that lie in the filesystem of the Dom0. That makes the kernel update and management easier.

The blktap2 VBD driver has better performance than blkback backed VBD. The blkback backed driver is used here for safety writing to the disk. The disk driver can be changed to use blktap2 driver later after updating the system. A blktap2 driver can be configured like this:

disk = ['tap:aio:/lhome/xen/f11install/vmdisk0,xvda,w' ]

Then the DomU can be started using this profile:

# xm create vm-10.0.0.123.run

The console of this DomU can be connected to:

# xm console vm-10.0.0.123

The console can be released by “Ctrl+]”.