I''m in the process of writing a book about xen, based on my experiences as a consultant and as a provider of xen virtual private servers. Anyhow, the book is targeting the intermediate Linux SysAdmin, and assumes no previous Xen knowledge. We went through a "how-to" chapter tonight, using a CentOS5 Dom0 and an arbitrary (slackware with a XenSource kernel) DomU. (next we will be trying the slack and debian Dom0s.) anyhow, we can get it working, but it is still largely a "black box" for us. Considering our audience and the level of this book, to some extent that is acceptable, but certainly a bit of knowledge of what goes on in this black box would be useful. Is there any available documentation for pygrub that is higher-level than the pygrub sources themselves? specifically, I am wondering if pygrub copies the kernel to the Dom0 or if it just kexec''s it within the DomU. _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
> Is there any available documentation for pygrub that is higher-level than > the pygrub sources themselves? specifically, I am wondering if pygrub > copies the kernel to the Dom0 or if it just kexec''s it within the DomU.I''m not sure if there''s any documentation, although you may find some description in mailing list discussions when the patches were released / reviewed, etc. It uses a FS access library to read data from the domU''s disk (specifically the grub-style config file and then the images it specifies), then boots these from dom0 using the standard domain builder. Older versions of pygrub ran from xm on the local console; new ones are plumbed so their output goes through the same socket as the domain''s console output, so it''s more seamless to users. I don''t think domU kexec is currently supported by the main codebase, but I am of the opinion it that would have a number of advantages for bootloading (including reducing the amount of dom0 code that must touch potentially malicious domU data). kboot (kboot.sf.net) would be a worthwhile thing to try running in this context... HTH, Cheers, Mark -- Dave: Just a question. What use is a unicyle with no seat? And no pedals! Mark: To answer a question with a question: What use is a skateboard? Dave: Skateboards have wheels. Mark: My wheel has a wheel! _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users