This is the release notes for linux release v0.97 with format adjusted by removing/replacing tabs/spaces/new lines. This notes document can give us an understanding of the early development of the Linux kernel. The original ASCII formatted version is at the end of this post. Changes in 0.97: The VESA-support was removed. I’d be happy to…
It is common that the root disk space is not enough when running a Virtual Machine in the cloud such as Amazon Web Service (AWS). The cloud storage usually provides tools or facilities to enlarge a virtual disk size. However, to make the Linux recognize and and use the enlarged disks without rebooting the OS,…
How to check and test whether a file of a given path is a block device in Python? This can be Linux specific. You can use the os.stat() function to get the stat of the path. Then use the stat.S_ISBLK() function against the stat’s .st_mode to test whether it is a block device. An example:…
How to make fdisk -l display partition sizes by bytes instead of sectors? fdisk does not have such options as far as I know. However, good news is that you can use parted: # parted -l It will print partition info like # parted -l Model: Linux device-mapper (linear) (dm) Disk /dev/mapper/fedora_vm235-swap: 2164MB Sector size…
I want to attach a disk to a DomU. The Xen DomU is running and should not be rebooted. Hence, changing its configuration file is not an option. How to dynamically attach a disk to running DomU in Xen? To attach phy:vg_xen/vm-228-large to vm-228 as xvdb, run this on Dom0: # xl block-attach vm-228 phy:vg_xen/vm-228-large…
My best favorite disk partition table manipulation tools are cfdisk/fdisk on Linux. However, for large disks, cfdisk/fdisk (of the versions by this post is written) will just give up with a message suggesting GPT partition table format and using GNU parted like WARNING: The size of this disk is 6.0 TB (6001042391040 bytes). DOS partition…
In this post, creating a file-backed virtual block device (VBD) and installing Fedora 20 in the Xen DomU via internet will be introduced. This domain is created on a Fedora 20 Dom0 as introduced in https://www.systutorials.com/installing-xen-on-fedora-20-as-domain-0/. For better performance, you may consider using LVM backed VM. Create file-backed VBD The actual space of VBD will…
Creating file-backed virtual block device (VBD) for Xen virtual machines and installing Fedora 12 in Xen DomU via internet will be introduced. Note that this tutorial is based on a pretty old OS (Fedora 12). But the method here is still valid while some minor details may need to be changed for latest Xen and…
I have done some I/O performance benchmark test of Xen DomU. For easier management, some of our DomU VMs are using file-backed VBDs. Previously, our VMs are using Loopback-mounted file-backed VBDs. But blktap-based support are recommended by Xen community. Before considering changing from loopback based VBD to blktap based VBD, I have done this performance…
In this post, these content are introduced: Create and manage file-backed virtual block device (VBD) for virtual machines on xen. Install Fedora 11 via internet as DomU on top of xen. Manage virtual machines using xm. Create file-backed VBD: The actual space of VBD will be the amount of disk the virtual machine used. And…
Linux has many tools for mounting, creating and burning iso image files. In this posts, I will introduce how to use the iso files on Linux. The tools we used in this post are mount, genisoimage and wodim. 1. Mount an iso image file Mounting an iso on Linux is straightforward. We mount the iso…