Managing LVM

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Any tutorials or tips on how to manage LVM? LVM provides a flexible and easy way to management storage disks on Linux. It also provides a set of tools for management. Here are some tutorials and references for managing LVM: LVM man pages: https://www.systutorials.com/docs/linux/man/8-lvm/#lbAL Manage Disk Volume in Linux: http://www.hongkedavid.com/blog/disk_volume.html LVM with Xen: https://www.systutorials.com/b/linux/tag/lvm/ Remove missing phyiscal volumes
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How to Install Paravirtualized CentOS 7 DomU on Xen

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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.
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How to Create Fedora 20 Domain-U on Fedora 20 Domain-0

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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
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Installing Xen on Fedora 20 as Domain-0

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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
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Managing Xen Dom0′s CPU and Memory

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The performance of Xen’s Dom0 is important for the overall system. The disk and network drivers are running on Dom0. I/O intensive guests’ workloads may consume lots Dom0′s CPU cycles. The Linux kernel calculates various network related parameters based on the amount of memory at boot time. The kernel also allocate memory for storing memory
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Script: Shutting Down All Xen VMs on a Server

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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
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Installing Fedora 17 PV Domain-U on Xen with PXE Booting

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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
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How to Install Xen on Fedora as Domain-0 (Fedora 17)

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The new development of Xen and Linux kernel make it easy to install Xen on Fedora as the Domain-0 now. This post uses Fedora 17 as an example platform to introduce how to set up Domain-0 on Fedora Linux. Compared to our old method (https://www.systutorials.com/setting-up-stable-xen-dom0-with-fedora-xen-3-4-3-with-xenified-linux-kernel-2-6-32-13-in-fedora-12/) which requires manually compiled Xen and patched kernel, the current
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How to Set Default Entry in Grub2 and Grub

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Linux booting is usually controlled by Grub or the new Grub2. Setting the default booting entry is a frequent operations. Here, we introduce how to set the default entry in Grub2 and Grub. Setting the default booting entry in grub2 Note1: With some version of grub2, the grub2-set-default method and the script below may not
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Extending a LVM Volume Group

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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
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Setting Up Ubuntu DomU on Xen: Ubuntu 10.10 on Fedora Xen Dom0

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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
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Simple Introduction to paravirt_ops for Xen

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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

Creating LVM Volume Group

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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
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Setting Up LVM Backed Xen DomU

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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
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Duplicating LVM Backed Xen DomU

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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
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Introduction to Xen Source Code Structure

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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
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Duplicating and Backing Up LVM Backed Xen DomU from a Remote Server

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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
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Setting up Stable Xen Dom0 with Fedora: Xen 3.4.3 with Xenified Linux Kernel 2.6.32.13 in Fedora 12

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This is the latest stable and recommended stable Xen Dom0 solution on Fedora 12. No serious bug found till now and we will fix the bugs by ourselves if some appears. It also works on Fedora 14 as well. It should not be hard to use this solution on other versions of Fedora or other
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Xen DomU’s I/O Performance of LVM and loopback Backed VBDs

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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 E5520  @ 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
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Problems during Installing Xen Dom0 in Fedora

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Here is a list of problem that may occur during installing and configuring Xen Dom0 in Fedora. It is found originally in Fedora systems, but the tips in this post should also be helpful for installing Xen Dom0 on other platforms. BIOS configuration If xen stops at: “I/O virtualization disabled.” We may need to enable
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