Xen Virtual Machine

This is a page for people to document how to set up Xen on Ubuntu, and their experiences with it.

To start with, I have not yet been able to boot Xen with a Ubuntu root, but I am currently working on it. I'm guessing it's something about 2.6's use of udev, or something else that would happen in an initrd. I have been able to get it booted and running on a Debian Sarge install.

information about Xen can be found at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/index.html

Status

MarkChang: As of 10.03.2005, I can't get to the Clarkson mirror to get any of the debs for Xen. [they changed the name of the file, go up a directory ] However, I have met with great success with a mostly-manual install. Documented in /XenOnUbuntuHoary

JasonSmithThailand: I am working on a Xen-on-Breezy document in /XenOnUbuntuBreezy.

I have packages mocked up right now, and they're nearly usable, although I have to fix the dependencies on them. I'll upload them somewhere to my website soon

I have confirmed that Ubuntu Hoary still uses devfs for dev entries in their initrds, so if you the default Xen kernel configs don't work for you, you may want to use an initrd and be sure you compile devfs in.

From redjar Wed Mar 30 22:35:37 +0100 2005 From: redjar Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 22:35:37 +0100 Subject: ubuntu/xen install howto Message-ID: <20050330223537+0100@https://www.ubuntulinux.org>

Came across this page: http://cosi.clarkson.edu/knowledge/workshops/sp05/installingxen/xen-tutorial.html

I have tested it, it works fine, but the files names have changed.

MartinManey: I'm starting out to try this on a fresh "server" install of Hoary. Of the packages they list as needed, I found bridge-utils, gcc, python-twisted, and the libcurl2-* packages were not already installed. At least without universe there don't appear to be any lubcurl2 packages, so my first attempt will be with libcurl3. Probably didn't need libcurl-dev or gcc to use the install kit. Worked well as far as getting Xen0 running. Getting the (expected) tls warning, but no visible problems so far. Lost eth0 config; patched in by adding "auto eth0" in /etc/network/interfaces for now. Had to create directories /var/lib/xen/xend-db/domain and .../vnet by hand before xend would run. I've since gotten a Fedora Core 3 image, built using the rpmstrap tool, to boot, but have been busy with other work since getting to that point.

JimKleckner: It would be good to have a brief discussion here (or if too big, a separate page) of whether it makes sense to eventually have Xen an option as part of a standard version of Ubuntu or not. What are the barriers?

JasonSmithThailand: I would very much like it if Xen were a standard part of Ubuntu. Virtualization is one of those things that you cannot live without, once you play with it. I think if Xen were known to run on the majory of Linux systems, there would be good opportunities for new kinds of cool software or tools. The reason I stopped halfway through documenting /XenOnUbuntuBreezy is becuase the kernel patches seemed mutually exclusive at the time, so it was not possible to augment an otherwise stock Ubuntu kernel with Xen. The only solution is doing a lot of work but still having a (slightly) incompatible kernel (mostly removing some drivers, IIRC) as other Ubuntu users.

chris.steelMontreal: Xen is really important and powerful. Para-virtualization totally rocks. Too bad I had to go back to a Hoary server in order to use it. The Ubuntu xen3 install page had some good clues but that mountain was too high! Perhaps a few 'history > xen3onbreezy.txt' links and a good Ubuntu kernel patch doc and the edited .h files might have got me through but my head was spinning and I caved. Hopefully Dapper will have a nice xen3 kernel selection and an initrd with at least LVM support and the other basic I/O etc. Any more breadcrumbs would be helpful ; )

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