Xen users - Sep 2005 - xen on a remote computer, installing virtual machines without cds

Hi All,

  I have just downloaded xen. We rent a computer with suse 9.3 (1000km from  
here, access with ssh2). I''d like to install 2 virtual machines (both
with
suse), of course without CD or floppy (due to distance). So I have no X  
and no CD. In this case what can be the best way to install xen, and the  
virtual machines?

Thnx
  George

ps: As I see in the documentation, xen can be configured only with grub. I  
have lilo, so xen with lilo is not possible?
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My guess is try a standarized kernel first. I don''t know much about
grub,
but is it possible to set up a kernel to boot default and if it fails 
switch back
to an original kernel?

Is there somebody that had physical access and can select a kernel at boot?

If your standarized kernel works, try incrementing little tweaks.
If you can set up an almost identical machine locally (same mb would help a
lot)...

Kind regards,

robin.

Sueveges Gyoergy wrote:
> Hi All,
>
>  I have just downloaded xen. We rent a computer with suse 9.3 (1000km 
> from  here, access with ssh2). I''d like to install 2 virtual
machines
> (both with  suse), of course without CD or floppy (due to distance). 
> So I have no X  and no CD. In this case what can be the best way to 
> install xen, and the  virtual machines?
>
> Thnx
>  George
>
> ps: As I see in the documentation, xen can be configured only with 
> grub. I  have lilo, so xen with lilo is not possible?


-- 

-----------------
Robin van Leeuwen

RLD Software - ICT Services
email: rvl@rldsoftware.nl


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On Thu, 2005-09-29 at 00:25 +0200, Sueveges Gyoergy
wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
>   I have just downloaded xen. We rent a computer with suse 9.3 (1000km from
> here, access with ssh2). I''d like to install 2 virtual machines
(both with
> suse), of course without CD or floppy (due to distance). So I have no X  
> and no CD. In this case what can be the best way to install xen, and the  
> virtual machines?
> 
> Thnx
>   George
> 
> ps: As I see in the documentation, xen can be configured only with grub. I
> have lilo, so xen with lilo is not possible?
I''m certainly no Xen expert but I don''t think I''ve
seen a reply to you
yet so I''ll try :)

I''d guess that you''d scp xen and any dependencies to the
remote server.
Install xen as normal.  I don''t know what you are doing for disk space
for the domUs.  I use logical volumes.  You can then mount the domU
partitions in either the original system or the dom0, copy in all the
system files, edit the configuration files, e.g., fstab, hosts for each
domU, create your domain definitions and you should be able to start
them.  We do almost all of our xen administration remotely.
-- 
John A. Sullivan III
Open Source Development Corporation
+1 207-985-7880
jsullivan@opensourcedevel.com

If you would like to participate in the development of an open source
enterprise class network security management system, please visit
http://iscs.sourceforge.net


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On September 28, 2005 18:25, Sueveges Gyoergy wrote:
> Hi All,
>
>   I have just downloaded xen. We rent a computer with suse 9.3
> (1000km from here, access with ssh2). I''d like to install 2
virtual
> machines (both with suse), of course without CD or floppy (due to
> distance). So I have no X and no CD. In this case what can be the
> best way to install xen, and the virtual machines?
>
> Thnx
>   George
>
> ps: As I see in the documentation, xen can be configured only with
> grub. I have lilo, so xen with lilo is not possible?
What you are trying to do is fraught with dangers. It is not 
impossible but one minor mistake and you will have no remote access. 
I have done a remote server installation with no remote hands but it 
was not easy. I had a means of power cycling the server and 
specifying PXE boot on the next boot. I could then attempt to fix the 
problem on the previous boot from the hard disk though it was not 
always obvious what the problem was. If the problem was before 
syslogd started, there would be no indication of it in the logs. It 
took some trial and error to get it working but I eventually got it 
working.

Make sure to include kernel modules for your hardware and filesystems. 
I built my dom0 and domU kernels as monolithic kernels and disabled 
support for module loading.

Some (many?) colocation facilities assign static IPs via dhcp. I got 
bitten by this once when this possibility did not occur to me until I 
had the provider reimage the drive of the server with their custom 
Red Hat distro. Once I realized that their installation was getting 
its IP via dhcp, I made the necessary change to my installation of 
Mandrake and I was off to the races. In your case, you already have a 
working installation so you should be able to use that as a point of 
reference.

Once you have the kernel booted, be very careful with iptables rules. 
You can easily lock yourself out. Until you get this sorted out, you 
might want to specify one IP address that you have access to, not 
necessarily the one that you are using for the remote configuration 
and testing, for which everything is allowed.
-- 
Regards,

Clifford Ilkay
Dinamis Corporation
3266 Yonge Street, Suite 1419
Toronto, ON
Canada  M4N 3P6

+1 416-410-3326

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Hi

  Thnx for everybody`s help on subject of installing xen on remote  
computer. I decided to make a home installation first of all  as a  
reproduction of remote system (with suse 9.3 with lilo, fs: resiserfs),  
and only when everything works fine I will try to install it remotely.

I could already migrate to grub from lilo (Yast could do this), and  
install the xen rpm-s from yast ( since I`m not a linux expert :)
Unfortunetely the yast doesn´t make any entry into the menu.lst of grub.  
So I had to insert the title xen manually. And it doesn`t work. When  
booting Igot kernel panic:

  kernel panic - no syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs unknown block(0,0)

But I followed the instructions in the xen doc, so I now have the  
following entries in menu.lst:

timeout 8
hiddenmenu
default 0

title Xen 2.0 / XenLinux 2.6
     kernel (hd0,6)/boot/xen.gz dom0_mem=131072 noreboot
     module (hd0,6)/boot/vmlinuz-xen root=/dev/hda7 selinux=0  
resume=/dev/hda6 showopts console=tty0

title SUSE_LINUX_9.3
     kernel (hd0,6)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda7 vga=0x31a selinux=0  
splash=silent linux26 resume=/dev/hda6 showopts
     initrd (hd0,6)/boot/initrd
....

I also tried only with the parameters written in the xen doc (no selinux,  
resume, showopts).
When I insert initrd-xen (module (hd0,6)/boot/initrd-xen) too, then it  
says, that kernel should be loaded first.

Maybe it doesn´t recognize the reiserfs file system? What could be done? I  
saw in the archive that someone had similar problem with DevFS, but I  
don`t think that it is also a solution for me.
Since I`m not a linux expert, Maybe may the problem is a very basic  
problem?
Which way should I go? Thnx for your help in advance :)

Best Regards
  George






On Sat, 1 Oct 2005 22:37:29 -0400, CLIFFORD ILKAY  
<clifford_ilkay@dinamis.com> wrote:
> On September 28, 2005 18:25, Sueveges Gyoergy wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>>   I have just downloaded xen. We rent a computer with suse 9.3
>> (1000km from here, access with ssh2). I''d like to install 2
virtual
>> machines (both with suse), of course without CD or floppy (due to
>> distance). So I have no X and no CD. In this case what can be the
>> best way to install xen, and the virtual machines?
>>
>> Thnx
>>   George
>>
>> ps: As I see in the documentation, xen can be configured only with
>> grub. I have lilo, so xen with lilo is not possible?
>
> What you are trying to do is fraught with dangers. It is not
> impossible but one minor mistake and you will have no remote access.
> I have done a remote server installation with no remote hands but it
> was not easy. I had a means of power cycling the server and
> specifying PXE boot on the next boot. I could then attempt to fix the
> problem on the previous boot from the hard disk though it was not
> always obvious what the problem was. If the problem was before
> syslogd started, there would be no indication of it in the logs. It
> took some trial and error to get it working but I eventually got it
> working.
>
> Make sure to include kernel modules for your hardware and filesystems.
> I built my dom0 and domU kernels as monolithic kernels and disabled
> support for module loading.
>
> Some (many?) colocation facilities assign static IPs via dhcp. I got
> bitten by this once when this possibility did not occur to me until I
> had the provider reimage the drive of the server with their custom
> Red Hat distro. Once I realized that their installation was getting
> its IP via dhcp, I made the necessary change to my installation of
> Mandrake and I was off to the races. In your case, you already have a
> working installation so you should be able to use that as a point of
> reference.
>
> Once you have the kernel booted, be very careful with iptables rules.
> You can easily lock yourself out. Until you get this sorted out, you
> might want to specify one IP address that you have access to, not
> necessarily the one that you are using for the remote configuration
> and testing, for which everything is allowed.


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Hi,

  I could solve the problem. There was not ´module ... initrd-xen´ in my  
menu.lst, but ''initrd.... initrd-xen''.
  Sorry for bugging :)

Best Regards
  George

> Hi
>
>   Thnx for everybody`s help on subject of installing xen on remote  
> computer. I decided to make a home installation first of all  as a  
> reproduction of remote system (with suse 9.3 with lilo, fs: resiserfs),  
> and only when everything works fine I will try to install it remotely.
>
> I could already migrate to grub from lilo (Yast could do this), and  
> install the xen rpm-s from yast ( since I`m not a linux expert :)
> Unfortunetely the yast doesn´t make any entry into the menu.lst of grub.  
> So I had to insert the title xen manually. And it doesn`t work. When  
> booting Igot kernel panic:
>
>   kernel panic - no syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs unknown  
> block(0,0)
>
> But I followed the instructions in the xen doc, so I now have the  
> following entries in menu.lst:
>
> timeout 8
> hiddenmenu
> default 0
>
> title Xen 2.0 / XenLinux 2.6
>      kernel (hd0,6)/boot/xen.gz dom0_mem=131072 noreboot
>      module (hd0,6)/boot/vmlinuz-xen root=/dev/hda7 selinux=0  
> resume=/dev/hda6 showopts console=tty0
>
> title SUSE_LINUX_9.3
>      kernel (hd0,6)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda7 vga=0x31a selinux=0  
> splash=silent linux26 resume=/dev/hda6 showopts
>      initrd (hd0,6)/boot/initrd
> ....
>
> I also tried only with the parameters written in the xen doc (no  
> selinux, resume, showopts).
> When I insert initrd-xen (module (hd0,6)/boot/initrd-xen) too, then it  
> says, that kernel should be loaded first.
>
> Maybe it doesn´t recognize the reiserfs file system? What could be done?  
> I saw in the archive that someone had similar problem with DevFS, but I  
> don`t think that it is also a solution for me.
> Since I`m not a linux expert, Maybe may the problem is a very basic  
> problem?
> Which way should I go? Thnx for your help in advance :)
>
> Best Regards
>   George
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, 1 Oct 2005 22:37:29 -0400, CLIFFORD ILKAY  
> <clifford_ilkay@dinamis.com> wrote:
>
>> On September 28, 2005 18:25, Sueveges Gyoergy wrote:
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>>   I have just downloaded xen. We rent a computer with suse 9.3
>>> (1000km from here, access with ssh2). I''d like to install
2 virtual
>>> machines (both with suse), of course without CD or floppy (due to
>>> distance). So I have no X and no CD. In this case what can be the
>>> best way to install xen, and the virtual machines?
>>>
>>> Thnx
>>>   George
>>>
>>> ps: As I see in the documentation, xen can be configured only with
>>> grub. I have lilo, so xen with lilo is not possible?
>>
>> What you are trying to do is fraught with dangers. It is not
>> impossible but one minor mistake and you will have no remote access.
>> I have done a remote server installation with no remote hands but it
>> was not easy. I had a means of power cycling the server and
>> specifying PXE boot on the next boot. I could then attempt to fix the
>> problem on the previous boot from the hard disk though it was not
>> always obvious what the problem was. If the problem was before
>> syslogd started, there would be no indication of it in the logs. It
>> took some trial and error to get it working but I eventually got it
>> working.
>>
>> Make sure to include kernel modules for your hardware and filesystems.
>> I built my dom0 and domU kernels as monolithic kernels and disabled
>> support for module loading.
>>
>> Some (many?) colocation facilities assign static IPs via dhcp. I got
>> bitten by this once when this possibility did not occur to me until I
>> had the provider reimage the drive of the server with their custom
>> Red Hat distro. Once I realized that their installation was getting
>> its IP via dhcp, I made the necessary change to my installation of
>> Mandrake and I was off to the races. In your case, you already have a
>> working installation so you should be able to use that as a point of
>> reference.
>>
>> Once you have the kernel booted, be very careful with iptables rules.
>> You can easily lock yourself out. Until you get this sorted out, you
>> might want to specify one IP address that you have access to, not
>> necessarily the one that you are using for the remote configuration
>> and testing, for which everything is allowed.
>
>
>


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I saw this link, i haven''t read the page so i don''t know if it
is what you
need, but the title seemed promising enough to mail you :-)

http://www.xmlvalidation.com/xen_howto_sarge.0.html


kind regards,

Robin van Leeuwen
RLD Software
ICT Services

Sueveges Gyoergy wrote:
> Hi All,
>
>  I have just downloaded xen. We rent a computer with suse 9.3 (1000km 
> from  here, access with ssh2). I''d like to install 2 virtual
machines
> (both with  suse), of course without CD or floppy (due to distance). 
> So I have no X  and no CD. In this case what can be the best way to 
> install xen, and the  virtual machines?
>
> Thnx
>  George
>
> ps: As I see in the documentation, xen can be configured only with 
> grub. I  have lilo, so xen with lilo is not possible?


_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users

Hi,

  Thnx for this site, it''s very intresting :) But till now I use
diskimage
for the subdomains, later maybe I try to make lvm for the subdomains.

So by now I could install some domains, but now I have no network on the  
subdomains:
  - is it normal to have no eth0, only lo when calling ifconfig on  
domainU-s?
  - I have only one public IP address for the host (domain0), I''d like
to
have subnet for the domainU-s? It is the routed network? Should I change  
something for that? (I know, that in the xend config I should enable the  
routing scripts (vif-route, network-route) as defaults)
  - When there are some special portforwarings I''d like to have, for  
example I''d like to able to log in to the domain1 from outside through
ssh, then where, how should I set it? With the iptables on the domain0, or  
in the xen initial scripts?

Thnx for the answers
  George



> I saw this link, i haven''t read the page so i don''t know
if it is what
> you
> need, but the title seemed promising enough to mail you :-)
>
> http://www.xmlvalidation.com/xen_howto_sarge.0.html
>
>
> kind regards,
>
> Robin van Leeuwen
> RLD Software
> ICT Services
>
> Sueveges Gyoergy wrote:
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>>  I have just downloaded xen. We rent a computer with suse 9.3 (1000km  
>> from  here, access with ssh2). I''d like to install 2 virtual
machines
>> (both with  suse), of course without CD or floppy (due to distance). So
>> I have no X  and no CD. In this case what can be the best way to  
>> install xen, and the  virtual machines?
>>
>> Thnx
>>  George
>>
>> ps: As I see in the documentation, xen can be configured only with  
>> grub. I  have lilo, so xen with lilo is not possible?
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-users mailing list
> Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users


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