Xen Virtualization on Linux and Solaris

It’s well known that OpenSuse’s utility vm-install fails to perform RH PV guests install via NFS shares.
Install from Internet repositories requires software download about 4GB of data for any CentOS 5.X of Fedora PV DomU. Corresponding ISO images have been copied to CentOS 5.2 box running Apache HTTP Server and located on same LAN. Then this images were loop mounted to corresponding folders under /var/www/html. This procedure provided an option for vm-install (via http) RH PV Guests at Xen 3.2.1 OpenSuse 11 Dom0 in pretty short time frame about 40-50 minutes for every DomU been installed.
Actually , Apache Server at Xen 3.2.1 OpenSuse 11 Dom0 may be used as well with some preconfiguration.
However, hardware resources on the Xen box might appear to be not sufficient for good installation performance
in this case.
# cd /etc/apache2
# vi default-server.conf
DocumentRoot “/srv/www/htdocs”
#
# Configure the DocumentRoot
#
<Directory “/srv/www/htdocs”>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
:wq
<br>
Restart Apache on OpenSuse 11Dom0 and mount loop rhel.iso as follows :-
dhcppc0:/etc/xen/isos # mount -o loop rhel.iso /srv/www/htdocs/rhel
dhcppc0:/etc/xen/isos # df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda7              13G  8.1G  3.9G  68% /
udev                  1.9G  212K  1.9G   1% /dev
gvfs-fuse-daemon       13G  8.1G  3.9G  68% /root/.gvfs
/dev/sdc1             978M  766M  213M  79% /media/disk
/etc/xen/isos/rhel.iso
4.3G  4.3G     0 100% /srv/www/htdocs/rhel
dhcppc0:/etc/xen/isos #
Since then Apache Server at Xen Dom0 may be used for vm-install via http.

I’ve used different linux box as HTTP server for perfomance reasons.
Start httpd daemon on CentOS 5.2 box located on the same LAN.
Then run :-
# cd /var/www/html/
# mkdir f9
# mkdir rhel52
# cd /etc/xen/isos
# mount -o loop f9.iso /var/www/html/f9
# mount -o loop rhel52.iso /var/www/html/rhel52
Check status :-
[root@ServerCentOS52 isos]# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup03-LogVol00
35G 31G 1.7G 95% /
/dev/sdb7 99M 57M 38M 61% /boot
tmpfs 2.0G 0 2.0G 0% /dev/shm
/dev/mapper/VolGroup02-LogVol00
19G 13G 5.2G 72% /mnt
/etc/xen/isos/rhel52.iso
4.3G 4.3G 0 100% /var/www/html/rhel52
/etc/xen/isos/f9.iso 3.9G 3.9G 0 100% /var/www/html/f9
Launch browser to http://192.168.1.39/f9 and http://192.168.1.39/rhel52 locally and make
sure , that created repositories are online:-

Now launch browser to http://192.168.1.39/rhel52 from remote Xen 3.2.1 OpenSuse 11 Dom0 to verify
web connectivity and proceed with vm-install to perform CentOS 5.2 PV guest install, referencing local CentOS 5.2 repository.

Perform in the same way F9 PV DomU install (kernel 2.6.25 with pv_ops)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 at 10:26 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.