How to attach and mount Xen DomU’s disk partitions on Linux without Xen? You can use kpartx to create devices from the VM disk image (say, ./vmdisk0). To activate all the partitions in a raw VM disk image: # kpartx -av ./vmdisk0 This will output lines such as: add map loop1p1 (253:8): 0 497664 linear…
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…
The question is as follows. harry@debian:~/workshop1/qemu_test/version1/test$ qemu-system-x86_64 -hda qcow2.img -cdrom domU-x86_64-FS.img -boot d -m 1024 VNC server running on `::1:5900′ harry@debian:~/workshop1/qemu_test/version1/test$ vncviewer 127.0.0.1:1 vncviewer: ConnectToTcpAddr: connect: Connection refused Unable to connect to VNC server Solution (add -vnc parameter for qemu-system-x86_64): harry@debian:~/workshop1/qemu_test/version1/test$ qemu-system-x86_64 -hda qcow2.img -cdrom domU-x86_64-FS.img -boot d -m 1024 -vnc 127.0.0.1:2 harry@debian:~/workshop1/qemu_test/version1/test$ vncviewer 127.0.0.1:2…
An example of Xen HVM DomU configuration file. An example for install the OS from an ISO: name=”10.0.1.235″ vcpus=2 memory=2048 shadow_memory=8 disk=[‘file:/lhome/xen/vm-10.0.1.235/vmdisk0,xvda,w’, ‘file:/lhome/Linux-x86_64-DVD.iso,xvdc:cdrom,r’] vif=[‘bridge=xenbr0′] kernel=’/usr/lib/xen/boot/hvmloader’ builder=’hvm’ device_model=’/usr/lib64/xen/bin/qemu-dm’ extra=” vnc=1 vnclisten=”0.0.0.0″ vncpasswd=’1234567′ # vncdisplay=1 vncconsole=1 on_reboot=’restart’ on_crash=’restart’ An example for run the VM after installation: name=”10.0.1.235″ vcpus=2 memory=2048 shadow_memory=8 disk=[‘file:/lhome/xen/vm-10.0.1.235/vmdisk0,xvda,w’] vif=[‘bridge=xenbr0′] kernel=’/usr/lib/xen/boot/hvmloader’ builder=’hvm’ device_model=’/usr/lib64/xen/bin/qemu-dm’ extra=” vnc=1…
How to attach and mount Xen DomU’s disk to Dom0 To attach phy:vg_xen/vm-10.1.1.228 to xvda on Domain-0: # xm block-attach Domain-0 phy:vg_xen/vm-10.1.1.228 xvda w Mount the new partition /dev/xvda2 to /mnt/xvda2: # mount /dev/xvda2 /mnt/xvda2 After finishing using the partition, umount it and detach it: # umount /mnt/xvda2/ # xm block-detach Domain-0 xvda
How to pass kernel parameters to Xen DomUs ? Kernel paremeter may be needed to be passed to a Xen DomU. For example, when the DomU fails to boot and we want to check it in ‘single’ mode. We can simply start the DomU with the “extra=” syntax. For example, to add ‘single’ to the…
This post introduces how to install a paravirtualized CentOS 7 DomU on Xen. The very common way of installing DomU does not work for CentOS 7. A little trick to set the repository and the network used by the VM should be used by adding a setting strings to the “extra=” field for this VM….
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…
I ever introduced [[installing-xen-domain-0-on-fedora-17]] as the first try to use the xen package delivered from Fedora and get away from manually compiling Xen and patching the kernel. In this post, I introduce installing Xen Dom0 on Fedora 20. Installing Xen First, install the xen pacakges: # yum install xen The Linux kernel is already ready…
Shutting down servers is a common operations for managing a cluster. However, if this server is configured to a Xen Dom0 and has Xen VMs (DomUs), the VMs should be shutdown first to avoid data lost on these VMs. xm supports a -a option to shutdown all VMs: # xm shutdown -a Add the -w…
An introduction to the general method of installing Domain-U on Xen is introduced here: Setting Up Stable Xen DomU with Fedora: Unmodified Fedora 12 on top of Xenified Fedora 12 Dom0 with Xen (this is a general introduction, some details are changed, such as ‘xl’ replacing ‘xm’, LVM backing the disk for higher performance. But…
We introduced how to create a LVM group with two hard disk partitions, which the LVM group can be used for [[setting-up-lvm-backed-xen-domu|installing LVM backed Xen DomUs]]. The LVM volume can have large capacity from several hard disks. However, we may use all the disk space after some time and we may need to extend the…
Setting up Ubuntu 10.10 DomU on top of Fedora Xen Dom0 is introduced in this post. The process of setting up Ubuntu 10.10 DomU is the same as Setting Up Stable Xen DomU with Fedora: Unmodified Fedora 12 on top of Xenified Fedora 12 Dom0 with Xen 4.0 This post only show the difference which…
The is a simple introduction to paravirt_ops in Linux kernel for Xen, VMware, etc. We make this introduction from the view of code. We use the function raw_local_irq_disable() and raw_local_irq_enable() functions in Linux kernel to introduce paravirt_ops for Xen and Xenified kernel. Please download the introduction to paravirt_ops pdf file: introduction-to-pv-ops-v3.pdf
How to create a LVM group from two hard disk partitions is introduced in this post. Assume we have installed two hard disks /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc to the server, our task now is to create one LVM volume group vg_xen for installing LVM backed Xen DomUs from these two disks. We will do this by…
The Xen hypervisor is a powerful virtualization solution that provides virtualization capabilities for x86, x86-64, and ARM architectures. The source code structure of Xen is organized into several directories, each of which contains a specific set of files. The backend and frontend drivers are an important part of the Xen hypervisor, and they provide a…
LVM’s snapshot feature enables us to duplicate an LVM backed Xen DomU in seconds inside of the same volume group. When we want to duplicate LVM backed Xen DomU from a remote server, we need to make use of LVM’s snapshot function and tools like scp and dd. Backing up the DomU is only part…
LVM volumes as backing for DomU’s file system is an appealing solution to Xen VBD. LVM volumes can dynamically grow/shrink and snapshot. These features make it simple and fast to duplicate DomU and adding storage to DomU. Creating LVM-backed Xen DomU is introduced in this post. Create LVM-backed VBD Suppose we have a LVM volume…
LVM’s snapshot feature enables us to duplicate an LVM backed Xen DomU in seconds rather than minutes. We no longer need to copy the entire file system image like backing up file backed Xen DomU. We just need to make a snapshot of the current Xen DomU in seconds. When there are changes to the…
This posts list benchmark (using bonnie++) result of I/O performance of Xen LVM and loopback backed VBDs. The configuration of machines Dom0 VCPU: 2 (Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5520Â @ 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…