Xen users - Apr 2006 - Basic question: Does Windows on Xen work now VT is here?

Does Windows on Xen work (out-of-the-box) now VT is here?

I have seen posts in the mailing list saying that it does, but also  
posts saying that it works through RDP (??).

I think that the answer to my question will be yes.
However I am very surprised that the web is not full of bloggers  
saying ''Wow! I can now run XP under Xen on my new Intel Dual Core"
(I know that many Core Duo''s are shipping without VT but _some_ do  
have it enabled e.g. Apple PowerBook and iMac??)

Thanks.
Felix Oxley

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On 4/27/06, Felix Oxley <felix@oxley.org> wrote:
>
> Does Windows on Xen work (out-of-the-box) now VT is here?
Works fine here
>
> I have seen posts in the mailing list saying that it does, but also
> posts saying that it works through RDP (??).
RDP == Remote Desktop Protocol: Microsoft''s VNC-like protocol.  Most
people here use it for their Windows VMs because the VNC/SDL console
support is rather slow.

Dave


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Dave Goodlad
dgoodlad@gmail.com or dave@goodlad.ca
http://david.goodlad.ca/

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On 4/28/06, Felix Oxley <felix@oxley.org> wrote:
>
> On 28 Apr 2006, at 22:26, David Goodlad wrote:
>
> > On 4/27/06, Felix Oxley <felix@oxley.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> Does Windows on Xen work (out-of-the-box) now VT is here?
> >
> > Works fine here
> >
> >>
> >> I have seen posts in the mailing list saying that it does, but
also
> >> posts saying that it works through RDP (??).
> >
> > RDP == Remote Desktop Protocol: Microsoft''s VNC-like
protocol.  Most
> > people here use it for their Windows VMs because the VNC/SDL console
> > support is rather slow.
> >
>
> Why is it necessary to use RDP/VNC?
> I (foolishly?) envisaged that one could "alt tab" between OSes.
I''m not totally sure what you mean by alt-tabbing between OSes.  If
you mean do a complete switch over to windows and have it takeover all
your devices etc, this is not possible.  If you''ve ever run VMWare,
Qemu, or other virtualization/emulation packages, these provide a
similar interface to what Xen will provide.

You can set up an SDL console (a window pops up on your X display)
that displays whatever would be displayed on the VM''s screen. 
It''s a
virtualized video card framebuffer, basically.  However, it''s not the
fastest in the world, so I''ve found that setting up RDP after Windows
is installed is the best solution...

Dave

--
Dave Goodlad
dgoodlad@gmail.com or dave@goodlad.ca
http://david.goodlad.ca/

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On 4/28/06, Serge Dubrouski <sergeyfd@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Can you provide a brief description of that configuration? How did you
> build a root image for Windows and what do you have in xen config
> file?
I created an empty disk image, something like this:

dd if=/dev/zero of=winxp.img bs=1024 count=1 seek=5000k

I built a config file (winxp.conf) that looks like the following
(based on the sample config that comes with xen):

import os, re
arch = os.uname()[4]
if re.search(''64'', arch):
    arch_libdir = ''lib64''
else:
    arch_libdir = ''lib''

#----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Kernel image file.
kernel = "/usr/lib/xen/boot/hvmloader"

# The domain build function. HVM domain uses ''hvm''.
builder=''hvm''

# Initial memory allocation (in megabytes) for the new domain.
memory = 256

# A name for your domain. All domains must have different names.
name = "winxp"

# Ethernet device
vif = [ ''type=ioemu, mac=00:16:3E:00:00:04'' ]

# Disk image
disk = [ ''file:/home/dave/xen-domUs/winxp.img,ioemu:hda,w'' ]

# New stuff
device_model = ''/usr/'' + arch_libdir +
''/xen/bin/qemu-dm''

# CD-ROM device or disk image
cdrom="/dev/cdrom"

# boot on floppy (a), hard disk (c) or CD-ROM (d)
#boot="c" # use after installation
boot="d" # use for installing windows, to boot from cd

# enable SDL console
sdl=1

# disable VNC console - I''ve had problems with it...
vnc=0
vncviewer=0

# set realtime clock to local time
localtime=1

#---- end winxp.conf

I booted this config (xm create winxp.conf) with my windows cd in the
drive, installed as usual, then changed the config to have
''boot="c"''
to boot from the disk image instead of the cd-rom.

One thing to make sure of, that threw me off for awhile, is that if
you are running X as a regular user you need to make sure that when
you ''su'' to root you are still able to connect to the X
server.  Just
run ''xterm'' as root to make sure.  If this is not setup
properly, the
SDL console window just won''t appear!

Hope that helps!
Dave
>
> On 4/28/06, David Goodlad <dgoodlad@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 4/27/06, Felix Oxley <felix@oxley.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > Does Windows on Xen work (out-of-the-box) now VT is here?
> >
> > Works fine here
> >
> > >
> > > I have seen posts in the mailing list saying that it does, but
also
> > > posts saying that it works through RDP (??).
> >
> > RDP == Remote Desktop Protocol: Microsoft''s VNC-like
protocol.  Most
> > people here use it for their Windows VMs because the VNC/SDL console
> > support is rather slow.
> >
> > Dave
> >
> >
> > --
> > Dave Goodlad
> > dgoodlad@gmail.com or dave@goodlad.ca
> > http://david.goodlad.ca/
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Xen-users mailing list
> > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
> >
>

--
Dave Goodlad
dgoodlad@gmail.com or dave@goodlad.ca
http://david.goodlad.ca/

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On 4/29/06, Mario Bischof <mbischof@gmx.net>
wrote:
> That RDP sounds pretty good, I think this avoids to run a X on dom0
> every time you want to access the windows domain, you can access it
> from an external windows pc. Thats a quite good solution. But how can
> you keep the windows running after you closed the sdl window??
> Every time i close this window, the windows domain is closed and
> dissapeared when i do a "xm list".
Right, you can''t close the SDL window without killing the domU. 
However, if you really don''t want to keep it open (minimize it even),
I''d suggest setting up the VNC console instead.  That way, you
wouldn''t even have to have X running when you boot your windows domU. 
Then, if/when you need the "real" console, you can just VNC in from
whatever machine you want.
>
> Well, but is there just a rough usb-support for vmx-domains? I''ve
> already managed to get support for my dongle in the dom0, it appears
> as a normal /dev/ node. Maybe it can be handled as a normal /dev/sdx
> device like usb-sticks. Maybe that could be easier to manage than an
> other device.
AFAIK, no, passing usb devices through to a vmx domU is not possible. 
This gets into DMA/memory addressing issues.  However, I''m certainly
not in a position to give a definitive answer on this :)  Maybe one of
the devs will chime in...

Dave

--
Dave Goodlad
dgoodlad@gmail.com or dave@goodlad.ca
http://david.goodlad.ca/

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On Saturday 29 April 2006 11:38 am, David Goodlad wrote:
> AFAIK, no, passing usb devices through to a vmx domU is not possible.
> This gets into DMA/memory addressing issues.  However, I''m
certainly
> not in a position to give a definitive answer on this :)  Maybe one of
> the devs will chime in...
Recent Qemu versions have it, might be possible to port some code.

also, there''s a LBA48-capable IDE emulation (still beta, i think) that
let''s
you create virtual harddisks bigger than 128GiB


-- 
Javier


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