On Tue, 2011-06-28 at 09:30 -0400, Steve Campbell wrote:
Mr. Heron was so kind to make a suggestion that I should use disk images to install VMs. Upon further thought, I kinda like the idea. So I re-read the manual and google a little, and discover I still don't know what should be in these disk images.
Should I copy the contents of the CDs to a file or what? I've got a test server at the moment with Centos 5.5 and xen installed as the host OS, but have just downloaded the 5.6 CD ISOs along with the DVD ISO, so I'll use 5.6 for my VMs. I've read about how I can create an image from something that already exists.
Again, any clarity would be appreciated.
Just put the ISO's in /var/lib/xen/images and point at them. If you didn't download the discs, you can rip them using:
dd if=/dev/<optical device> of=/var/lib/xen/images/<name of disc>
For example, if ripping the first 5.6 CD...
dd if=/dev/hdc of=/var/lib/xen/images/CentOS-5.6-i386-d1.iso
I generally rip a disc multiple times and then do a file compare to make sure I've got a reasonable chance of having an undamaged copy.
Keep in mind that it isn't as easy to change discs when you are using images on a paravirtual machine.
I still recommend setting up a local repository as a much better solution because it allows you to take a snapshot so multiple installs use the exact same versions of everything.