CentOS virt - Mar 2015 - CentOS 6 VM image for paravirtualizaton on CentOS Xen server

On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 07:52:42PM -0700, Sarah Newman
wrote:
> > 
> > I'd really prefer to work from 'virsh' than from
hand-writing xl
> > configuration files.When I last did this sort of thing, I worked from
> > a PXE environment that I controlled and could reserve DHCP settings
> > based on MAC addresses, and tune PXE to boot from disk by default but
> > allow users to select a clean re-install of the operating system they
> > wanted.
> 
> virt-install with --location maybe? Never tried it but it looks like what
you want.
> 
> http://linux.die.net/man/1/virt-install
> 
Yeah you can use virt-install on CentOS 5 Xen host to install CentOS 6 PV domUs,
I do that often, an example for GUI installation:

virt-install -d -n vmname -r 1024 --vcpus=2 -f /dev/vg01/vmname_disk0 -b virbr0
--vnc -p -l "http://ftp.funet.fi/pub/mirrors/centos.org/6.5/os/x86_64"

(you need to have virt-viewer installed, that'll be used to display the VNC
GUI console).

-- Pasi

On 03/16/2015 08:58 AM, Pasi K?rkk?inen wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 07:52:42PM -0700, Sarah Newman wrote:
>>> I'd really prefer to work from 'virsh' than from
hand-writing xl
>>> configuration files.When I last did this sort of thing, I worked
from
>>> a PXE environment that I controlled and could reserve DHCP settings
>>> based on MAC addresses, and tune PXE to boot from disk by default
but
>>> allow users to select a clean re-install of the operating system
they
>>> wanted.
>> virt-install with --location maybe? Never tried it but it looks like
what you want.
>>
>> http://linux.die.net/man/1/virt-install
>>
> Yeah you can use virt-install on CentOS 5 Xen host to install CentOS 6 PV
domUs,
> I do that often, an example for GUI installation:
>
> virt-install -d -n vmname -r 1024 --vcpus=2 -f /dev/vg01/vmname_disk0 -b
virbr0 --vnc -p -l
"http://ftp.funet.fi/pub/mirrors/centos.org/6.5/os/x86_64"
>
> (you need to have virt-viewer installed, that'll be used to display the
VNC GUI console).
>
> -- Pasi
Quote from an actual installation:

[root at xenh4 ~]# history| grep virt
virt-install  -n dhcpdns -p -r 1024 --os-type=linux --vnc -f 
/var/lib/xen/images/dhcpdns -s 2 -l 
http://192.168.50.40/mrepo/centos6-i386/disc1 -x 
"ks=ftp://192.168.50.40/linux/ks-minimalC6-xen.cfg"

[root at xenh4 ~]# uname -a
Linux xenh4 2.6.18-400.1.1.el5xen #1 SMP Thu Dec 18 02:18:37 EST 2014 
i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

https://github.com/CentOS/Community-Kickstarts/blob/master/ks-minimalC6.cfg 
is quite close to the above mentioned ks-minimalC6-xen.cfg ( actually 
both are descendants of the same template of mine )

On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 4:02 AM, Manuel Wolfshant
<wolfy at nobugconsulting.ro> wrote:
> Quote from an actual installation:
>
> [root at xenh4 ~]# history| grep virt
> virt-install  -n dhcpdns -p -r 1024 --os-type=linux --vnc -f
> /var/lib/xen/images/dhcpdns -s 2 -l
> http://192.168.50.40/mrepo/centos6-i386/disc1 -x
> "ks=ftp://192.168.50.40/linux/ks-minimalC6-xen.cfg"
>
> [root at xenh4 ~]# uname -a
> Linux xenh4 2.6.18-400.1.1.el5xen #1 SMP Thu Dec 18 02:18:37 EST 2014 i686
> i686 i386 GNU/Linux
>
> https://github.com/CentOS/Community-Kickstarts/blob/master/ks-minimalC6.cfg
> is quite close to the above mentioned ks-minimalC6-xen.cfg ( actually both
> are descendants of the same template of mine )
Thanks!!!! The key, hinted at by various notes in this thread, was the
use of the "--location" to point to a network accessibleinstallation
repository. I'm afraid that the Xen wiki directions about
"--location"
are a bit unclear about the need for this to be the base of a
deployment directory, one that *must* have a working subdirectory
called 'imagex/xen' with the relevant files in it. I admint, I have to
just love hardcoded, hidden requirements!!!

I'll point out for others who may need to image systems quickly that
it's often more effective, especially in terms of speed and external
bandwidth, to use an internal mirror as you did. I'll also point out
that it can be awfully handy to keep such a mirror up-to-date and use
it your local configurations. I publish such scripts at
https://github.com/nkadel/nkadel-rsync-scripts, in case anyone else
wants them.

I'll also mention my old habit in ks.cfg files of doing this, to hang
onto the actual ks.cfg instead of the confused and '%pre' and
'%post'
stripped, anaconda reverse engineered oddness in
/root/anaconda-ks.cfg.

    %pre
     cp -f /tmp/ks.cfg /mnt/sysimage/root/ks.cfg
    %end