HOWTO install XEN on Ubuntu jaunty / 9.04

This log of my tests installing XEN on ubuntu jaunty.

Hardware

Here's the details of the machine that I'm installing on to.

Manufacture [model] [type]
Dell [XPS M1710] [Laptop]
CPU
Intel T7200

Installing the XEN kernel and xen-tools

I had some great help from the guys at infohit.net with their post on how to install xen on jaunty. I followed the steps laid out and I was able to see that my hypervisor was running.

Once I had this done I then created a test machine. I read a bunch of posts on howto create xen machines, and it appears that the new xen-tools package will handle most of it for you.

To create a new domU guest on my jaunty dom0 host I checked my /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp after reading through it and other posts, I ran with the default settings, as it appeared that the Network was already set to use bridging.

I the checked that the /etc/xen-tools/xen-tools.conf was set correctly. In here I only changed the dist = lenny as I had used the lenny kernel, tho I'm not sure it was nessasary.

Additionally in the /etc/xen-tools/xen-tools.conf file I checked that the kernel was set to use the appropriate file. Again this was correct by default

At this point I created a new Image.

┌─(root@ilread Mon, 08 Jun 09)─—————————————————————————————————————————————————————─(/home/andrew)────┐ └─(16:51 $)─> xen-create-image -hostname=mailserver -ip=10.0.0.21 -netmask=255.0.0.0.0 -gateway=10.0.0.200 -passwd --dir /vmdrives/xen

This took about 5 mins to complete and I then went to check my xen domains folder and I coudl clearly see the XEN disk images in place.

Checking new domain

Once I had created the new domain, I checked to see that it was running using :

┌─(root@ilread Mon, 08 Jun 09)─——————————————————————─(/home/andrew)────┐ └─(16:53 $)─> xm list Name ID Mem VCPUs State Time(s) Domain-0 0 1374 2 r----- 511.3 mailserver 1 128 1 -b---- 0.8 ┌─(root@ilread Mon, 08 Jun 09)─——————————————————————─(/home/andrew)────┐ └─(16:53 $)─>

And sure enough the new machine was there.

I thne tested the networking. ping> from the dom0 host worked perfectly as did a ping from my BSD box on the same n/w

I then tried to attach to the console of the machine using :

┌─(root@ilread Mon, 08 Jun 09)─——————————————————————─(/home/andrew)────┐ └─(16:56 $)─> xm console mailserver

This, while it worked I was attached to the domU machine, appeared to not respond to any of my interactions.

Install OS onto domU

Now I was happy that my XEN hypervisor was working I had to learn how to attach an .iso and install a base system.

This is how far I am now...

I have also downloaded a copy of gentoo 2008.0 from stacklet.net, a service that supplies bootable images for virtual hosts. I was able to get attached to this domU guest via the xm console gentoo-2008.0 command, and while I had the wrong kernel configured I was in a familiar gentoo evn. :)

This is how far I am now...

Last Updated : 08/06/2009 @ 17:04