The subject says it all. I got CentOS 6.4 installed and then converted it to boot into the Xen kernel, using the C6.4 system as its dom0. But now I'm uncertain how to put a C6.4 domU on the result. Which tools are recommended?
On 12/02/2013 06:32 AM, Kenneth Porter wrote:
The subject says it all. I got CentOS 6.4 installed and then converted it to boot into the Xen kernel, using the C6.4 system as its dom0. But now I'm uncertain how to put a C6.4 domU on the result. Which tools are recommended?
why not just use virt-install from the cli ?
- KB
On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 1:11 PM, Karanbir Singh mail-lists@karan.org wrote:
On 12/02/2013 06:32 AM, Kenneth Porter wrote:
The subject says it all. I got CentOS 6.4 installed and then converted it to boot into the Xen kernel, using the C6.4 system as its dom0. But now I'm uncertain how to put a C6.4 domU on the result. Which tools are recommended?
why not just use virt-install from the cli ?
- KB
Morning, Karanbir, long time since I've commented on a thread with you.
Because virt-install involves having some fairly serious knowledge of the options available. For a noob, or someone who doesn't write their own resource analysis and wrapper scripts easily, It's fairly fragile to use. It also doesn't automatically report replicatoin of IP addresses for setup configurations, nor is it capable of tracking resource allocations and overlaps among multiple KVM servers that are not in a cluster.
virt-manager is very helpful to noobs setting up their first resources, but I frankly admit that for small virtualization environments. But it's quite burdened by trying to support too many virtualization technologies, and by its own confusion of who owns the configuration files and where they should reside. But I also admit that for small, lightweight virtualization setups, I find KVM itself quite awkeward and simply use VirtualBox. The KVM bridging requirements, in particular, are impossible to set up without hand-editing the network configuration files or reading, and writing, guidelines such as my old ones for pair bonding and bridging and KVM and VLANs at https://wikis.uit.tufts.edu/confluence/display/TUSKpub/Configure+Pair+Bondin....
On 12/03/2013 05:32 AM, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 1:11 PM, Karanbir Singh mail-lists@karan.org wrote:
On 12/02/2013 06:32 AM, Kenneth Porter wrote:
The subject says it all. I got CentOS 6.4 installed and then converted it to boot into the Xen kernel, using the C6.4 system as its dom0. But now I'm uncertain how to put a C6.4 domU on the result. Which tools are recommended?
why not just use virt-install from the cli ?
- KB
Morning, Karanbir, long time since I've commented on a thread with you.
Because virt-install involves having some fairly serious knowledge of the options available. For a noob, or someone who doesn't write their own resource analysis and wrapper scripts easily, It's fairly fragile to use. It also doesn't automatically report replicatoin of IP addresses for setup configurations, nor is it capable of tracking resource allocations and overlaps among multiple KVM servers that are not in a cluster.
virt-manager is very helpful to noobs setting up their first resources, but I frankly admit that for small virtualization environments. But it's quite burdened by trying to support too many virtualization technologies, and by its own confusion of who owns the configuration files and where they should reside. But I also admit that for small, lightweight virtualization setups, I find KVM itself quite awkeward and simply use VirtualBox. The KVM bridging requirements, in particular, are impossible to set up without hand-editing the network configuration files or reading, and writing, guidelines such as my old ones for pair bonding and bridging and KVM and VLANs at https://wikis.uit.tufts.edu/confluence/display/TUSKpub/Configure+Pair+Bondin....
Heaven help me, but I agree with you :)
Libvirt and virt-manager is much easier to use than the command line tools ... although it also limits what you can accomplish as it only does a fraction of the possible configurations.
Libvirt on xen4centos:
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Xen/Xen4QuickStart/Xen4Libvirt
--On Tuesday, December 03, 2013 5:35 PM -0600 Johnny Hughes johnny@centos.org wrote:
Libvirt on xen4centos:
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Xen/Xen4QuickStart/Xen4Libvirt
I'm looking forward to the page on libvirt bridging mentioned there.
--On Tuesday, December 03, 2013 5:35 PM -0600 Johnny Hughes johnny@centos.org wrote:
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Xen/Xen4QuickStart/Xen4Libvirt
Ok, I created a domU with the following command, and I see the image I created, but I can't find the resulting config file. Where'd it go? Nothing in /etc/xen or /etc/libvirt has a recent timestamp. I can start the image with virsh and connect to its console, but I don't know where it stores its configuration. I don't see any files in /etc/sysconfig that contain the name of my domU (asskicker1). (I grepped all of /etc for that string.) From all the documentation I'm finding I'm supposed to put a config file in /etc/xen/auto to make the domU load at boot time but I can't fine the config file to make that happen. Looking at the initscript for libvirt-guests, it seems I'm supposed to list boot-time guests in a new file called /var/lib/libvirt/libvirt-guests.
/usr/sbin/virt-install \ --noreboot \ --vcpus 4 \ --name asskicker1 \ --ram 12288 \ --location http://mirror.stanford.edu/yum/pub/centos/6.5/os/x86_64 \ --os-type=linux \ --os-variant=rhel6 \ --disk path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/asskicker1.dsk,sparse=true,size=32,format=raw
--On Monday, December 09, 2013 12:54 AM -0800 Kenneth Porter shiva@sewingwitch.com wrote:
Ok, I created a domU with the following command, and I see the image I created, but I can't find the resulting config file. Where'd it go?
Found it:
/var/lib/xend/domains/6f8d7953-bace-fab9-7f6a-1ec383cb1a82/config.sxp
This web page gave me the clue on where to look:
On 12/02/2013 12:32 AM, Kenneth Porter wrote:
The subject says it all. I got CentOS 6.4 installed and then converted it to boot into the Xen kernel, using the C6.4 system as its dom0. But now I'm uncertain how to put a C6.4 domU on the result. Which tools are recommended?
You can use virt-manager either from the Dom0 server (if it has all the GUI stuff and virt-manger installed) ... OR ... by connecting to the Dom0 using virt-manager from a Linux workstation. See my xen4centos libvirt article here:
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Xen/Xen4QuickStart/Xen4Libvirt
You can also use Xen XM tools with the default install ... OR ... if you do not plan on using libvirt at all, you can setup and use Xen XL tools (if using libvirt, you have to use xend and Xen XM):
XM Tools: http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/XM
XL Tools: http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/XL
Thanks, Johnny Hughes
On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 6:31 PM, Johnny Hughes johnny@centos.org wrote:
You can also use Xen XM tools with the default install ... OR ... if you do not plan on using libvirt at all, you can setup and use Xen XL tools (if using libvirt, you have to use xend and Xen XM):
IIRC I have used libvirt with the libxl driver (no xend running) and it seemed to work fine (although I was just learning and not really using it in production). Is there a reason you say you have to use xend rather than libxl with libvirt?
Dusty
On 12/03/2013 05:41 PM, Dusty Mabe wrote:
On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 6:31 PM, Johnny Hughes johnny@centos.org wrote:
You can also use Xen XM tools with the default install ... OR ... if you do not plan on using libvirt at all, you can setup and use Xen XL tools (if using libvirt, you have to use xend and Xen XM):
IIRC I have used libvirt with the libxl driver (no xend running) and it seemed to work fine (although I was just learning and not really using it in production). Is there a reason you say you have to use xend rather than libxl with libvirt?
Yes, there are (or at least were in xen-4.2.2, kernel-3.4.x, and libvirt-0.10.2.4 when we did extensive testing) some issues creating VMs using xenlight (XL) with the xen4centos libvirt.
We have done many updates since then (much newer libvirt (0.10.2.8) and also 4.2.3 xen and even a newer kernel (3.10.x)) ... so it XL might work better now than it did initially.
I would be glad to hear reports from others who have tested XL with the latest packages.
You can not swap xen types on a dom0 ... SO ... do not break you production machines trying to go from XM to XL and vice-versa :)
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Dusty Mabe -
Johnny Hughes -
Karanbir Singh -
Kenneth Porter -
Nico Kadel-Garcia