Xen devel - Jan 2005 - general question on how to install a new guest OS without rebooting

It seems that it is mandatory to reboot the platform in order to install
a new guest OS, from CDROMs delivered with this OS.

On a workstation, it is not a problem but on a server it is a big problem
which is unacceptable for a professional usage of Xen.

Is there a plan or a mean to resolve this problem, as in VMware
product, where a new guest OS may be installed directly inside
a virtual machine without disturbing the other guest OSes ?

> It seems that it is mandatory to reboot the platform in order 
> to install a new guest OS, from CDROMs delivered with this OS.
>  
> On a workstation, it is not a problem but on a server it is a 
> big problem which is unacceptable for a professional usage of Xen.
>  
> Is there a plan or a mean to resolve this problem, as in 
> VMware product, where a new guest OS may be installed 
> directly inside a virtual machine without disturbing the 
> other guest OSes ?
After you''ve installed a particular distribution once, you
''can'' the
pristine install either by tar''ing it up, or using LVM snapshots.
Depending on usage, you may need to do a little tailoring, such as
generating a unique ssh host key.

Another alternative is to use tools like ''debbootstrap'' for
doing an
install into another directory. For RH/FC the anaconda --rootpath
option may be useable to do the same thing, though I haven''t tried it
myself.

Ian


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Right now the default is to install xen.gz to /boot/xen.gz

Any objection to changing it to install to /boot/xen-version.gz? This 
would be helpful when running different versions of xen. 

ron


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On Tue, 4 Jan 2005, Ronald G. Minnich wrote:
>
> Right now the default is to install xen.gz to /boot/xen.gz
>
> Any objection to changing it to install to /boot/xen-version.gz? This
> would be helpful when running different versions of xen.
>
> ron
Makes perfect sense.  I should probably do that in the debian packages.


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Ian Pratt wrote:
>>It seems that it is mandatory to reboot the platform in order 
>>to install a new guest OS, from CDROMs delivered with this OS.
>>    
>>
You can install guest OS from CD ? How?
>After you''ve installed a particular distribution once, you
''can'' the
>pristine install either by tar''ing it up, or using LVM snapshots.
>Depending on usage, you may need to do a little tailoring, such as
>generating a unique ssh host key.
>
>  
>
That''s what I''ve been doing up to now.
Installing a new guest OS for me is now a matter of
creating new LV - mkfs - untar - create xen config - boot.
ssh-keys are generated on first guest OS boot, initial IP information 
obtained from DHCP.
No reboot of host OS (Domain-0) necessary.

Regards,

Fajar


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On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 13:08:23 +0100, Philippe Berthault
<Philippe.Berthault@bull.net> wrote:
> It seems that it is mandatory to reboot the platform in order to install
> a new guest OS, from CDROMs delivered with this OS.
i think it is impossible to install the guest OS from CDROM like in
normal way. one of the reason is that Xen requires the special kernel
for guest OS, so the kernel from normal installation cannot be used
with Xen.

regards,
AQ


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