Fedora xen - Dec 2008 - How To Test Dom0 Xen Support In Fedora 10

Hello,

I''m an experienced IBM mainframe programmer with just a little C and
Java coding experience. I have no experience in the programming part of
virtualization. I currently do have CentOS 5.2 running as a guest under
VMWare workstation (an older version which is about a year old, running
on a Fedora 7 host. And yes, I know Fedora 7 is long out of date.)

I would like to jump in the water and get my feet wet, though. Can
someone like me test Dom0 Xen support in Fedora 10? If so, is there a
web resource somewhere spelling out how to get started with testing? I
will need the steps involved in patching and building a test kernel
pointed out to me.

I just bought a new laptop, the Dell Latitude E6400 with the Intel P9500
processor. I think this processor has virtualization technology (vmx
extensions?) so the hardware for testing is there.

Thanks

Bob Cochran

Hello

Dom0 is not supported on Fedora 10.
It should wait until upstream kernel support.
Or you should install upstream-Xen.

For more detail(Fedora status) see below.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/XenPvopsDom0
Dom0 status: awaiting upstream kernel support 

Thanks
Atsushi SAKAI








Robert L Cochran <cochranb@speakeasy.net> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I''m an experienced IBM mainframe programmer with just a little C
and
> Java coding experience. I have no experience in the programming part of
> virtualization. I currently do have CentOS 5.2 running as a guest under
> VMWare workstation (an older version which is about a year old, running
> on a Fedora 7 host. And yes, I know Fedora 7 is long out of date.)
> 
> I would like to jump in the water and get my feet wet, though. Can
> someone like me test Dom0 Xen support in Fedora 10? If so, is there a
> web resource somewhere spelling out how to get started with testing? I
> will need the steps involved in patching and building a test kernel
> pointed out to me.
> 
> I just bought a new laptop, the Dell Latitude E6400 with the Intel P9500
> processor. I think this processor has virtualization technology (vmx
> extensions?) so the hardware for testing is there.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Bob Cochran
> 
> 
> --
> Fedora-xen mailing list
> Fedora-xen@redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-xen

Hi,
> I would like to jump in the water and get my feet wet, though. Can
> someone like me test Dom0 Xen support in Fedora 10?
Nothing upstream yet, nothing packaged yet.  The dom0 patch queue seems
to reach the state where the system boots now though.  If you are
willing and able to build your own kernels you can watch the xen-devel
list, build and test dom0 pv_ops kernels, to help upstream get the job done.

If all goes well the first dom0 support bits should be ready for the
next merge window, i.e. make it into 2.6.29.  If that happens rawhide
should have kernel packages with (probably limited) dom0 support ready
for testing early next year.  fedora10 packages will have to wait until
2.6.29-final is released, which is probably 3-4 months from now.

HTH,
  Gerd

Hi,

On Thu, 2008-12-11 at 18:29 -0500, Robert L Cochran
wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I''m an experienced IBM mainframe programmer with just a little C
and
> Java coding experience. I have no experience in the programming part of
> virtualization. I currently do have CentOS 5.2 running as a guest under
> VMWare workstation (an older version which is about a year old, running
> on a Fedora 7 host. And yes, I know Fedora 7 is long out of date.)
> 
> I would like to jump in the water and get my feet wet, though. Can
> someone like me test Dom0 Xen support in Fedora 10? If so, is there a
> web resource somewhere spelling out how to get started with testing? I
> will need the steps involved in patching and building a test kernel
> pointed out to me.
> 
> I just bought a new laptop, the Dell Latitude E6400 with the Intel P9500
> processor. I think this processor has virtualization technology (vmx
> extensions?) so the hardware for testing is there.
It sounds like your interest is in virtualization generally and not Xen
specifically?

If that''s the case - and your machine has VMX - then perhaps it would
be
more realistic for you to jump in (slightly shallower water :-) and try
using Fedora 10 KVM? I only say that because you might find it difficult
to make any headway building a Dom0 kernel.

This is a good starting point:

   http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Virtualization_Quick_Start

Feel free to ask KVM questions on this list too ... it''s about time we
renamed it to fedora-virt@redhat.com :-)

Cheers,
Mark.

Mark McLoughlin wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Thu, 2008-12-11 at 18:29 -0500, Robert L Cochran wrote:
>   
>> Hello,
>>
>> I''m an experienced IBM mainframe programmer with just a little
C and
>> Java coding experience. I have no experience in the programming part of
>> virtualization. I currently do have CentOS 5.2 running as a guest under
>> VMWare workstation (an older version which is about a year old, running
>> on a Fedora 7 host. And yes, I know Fedora 7 is long out of date.)
>>
>> I would like to jump in the water and get my feet wet, though. Can
>> someone like me test Dom0 Xen support in Fedora 10? If so, is there a
>> web resource somewhere spelling out how to get started with testing? I
>> will need the steps involved in patching and building a test kernel
>> pointed out to me.
>>
>> I just bought a new laptop, the Dell Latitude E6400 with the Intel
P9500
>> processor. I think this processor has virtualization technology (vmx
>> extensions?) so the hardware for testing is there.
>>     
>
> It sounds like your interest is in virtualization generally and not Xen
> specifically?
>
> If that''s the case - and your machine has VMX - then perhaps it
would be
> more realistic for you to jump in (slightly shallower water :-) and try
> using Fedora 10 KVM? I only say that because you might find it difficult
> to make any headway building a Dom0 kernel.
>
> This is a good starting point:
>
>    http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Virtualization_Quick_Start
>
> Feel free to ask KVM questions on this list too ... it''s about
time we
> renamed it to fedora-virt@redhat.com :-)
>
> Cheers,
> Mark.
>
>
>   
Thanks for the suggestions! I''ve compiled Linux kernels several times
before but still can''t call myself any sort of a kernel hacker.

I''m going to install Fedora 10 x86_64 on my new laptop with the
virtualization packages. My goal is to install Fedora 10, CentOS 5.2,
Windows XP Professional, and Windows Vista as separate virtual machines
and ensure each one has access to the hardware. Video, networking, USB
access, firewire access, serial port access (through my shiny new Dell
E-Port Plus dock) will all be mandatory. I want to do things like bring
up a Fedora 10 guest, work with the Arduino development interface (see
http://www.greenbeltcomputer.biz/sanguino1.html and be patient as the
numerous photos download...my web server sits right behind me and only
has 128K upload), and then flash my target Arduino board over USB from
the virtual machine.

I do have a thousand questions to ask, such as why is a dom0 guest
important? I have a hard time visualizing the practical differences
between a dom0 and a domU guest.

Thanks

Bob

On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 09:03:09PM -0500, Robert L Cochran
wrote:
> 
> 
> Mark McLoughlin wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > On Thu, 2008-12-11 at 18:29 -0500, Robert L Cochran wrote:
> >   
> >> Hello,
> 
> I do have a thousand questions to ask, such as why is a dom0 guest
> important? I have a hard time visualizing the practical differences
> between a dom0 and a domU guest.
Dom0 is another name for the host operating system. It has access to,
and manages all the physical hardware devices, and provides the mgmt
of the DomU guest operating systems. The reason getting a working Dom0 
is a harder bit  of work than DOmU, is precisely because it has to manage
all the hardware and work with the hypervisor. The DomU only ever sees
virtual hardware devices (ignoring PCI passthrough), so its a much
simpler beast.

Daniel
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