First of all, I have searched and searched,so please do not suggest that ;-)
Anyway, I have a machine that I want to be able to create a LOT of
domUs. The problem is, I cant just clone them... its a SLES10 system
and the domUs are being created (right now at least) through YaST.
I have seen only a little bit of documentation about templating, but
nothing that really helps out in this. I have also read a bunch of
sites and threads about how to build them by hand using bootstrap or
some other means... that doesnt work.
What I want to be able to do is build ONE domU and then create at
least 20 - 30 copies of it. I cant just copy the domU''s filesystem
and config file as they all end up with the same MAC address for the
NIC. Even changing that in the config file does not help as when I
boot the copy with a config that has a MAC ending in 99:9f, it STILL
shows the MAC of the original copy...
So, does anyone know of any documentation on using templates to create
multiple domUs? Other than building them by hand, if at all possible.
It''s not that I am lazy (I am) but I have to look at this from the
end user perspective, and no one is going to want to go through the
hassle of making 100+ domUs by hand when VMWare allows you to simply
point and click to create templates and clones.
Ok, that was a bit oversimplified, but VMWare DOES make it relatively
simple. Is the templating functionality readily usable in Xen yet??
Cheers
Jeff
--
------------------> Jeffrey Lane - W4KDH <-------------------
www.jefflane.org
Another cog in the great
Corporate Wheel
The internet has no government, no constitution, no laws, no
rights, no police, no courts. Don''t talk about fairness or
innocence, and don''t talk about what should be done. Instead,
talk about what is being done and what will be done by the
amorphous unreachable undefinable blob called "the internet
user base." -Paul Vixie
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On Tue, Jun 27, 2006 at 01:47:49PM -0400, Jeff Lane wrote:> Anyway, I have a machine that I want to be able to create a LOT of > domUs. The problem is, I cant just clone them... its a SLES10 system > and the domUs are being created (right now at least) through YaST.I don''t see why the use of SLES10/YaST precludes copying them.> I have seen only a little bit of documentation about templating, but > nothing that really helps out in this. I have also read a bunch of > sites and threads about how to build them by hand using bootstrap or > some other means... that doesnt work.There isn''t anything by definitive, but I think there are a lot of people with a similar need, albeit on a smaller scale.> What I want to be able to do is build ONE domU and then create at > least 20 - 30 copies of it. I cant just copy the domU''s filesystem > and config file as they all end up with the same MAC address for the > NIC. Even changing that in the config file does not help as when I > boot the copy with a config that has a MAC ending in 99:9f, it STILL > shows the MAC of the original copy...Right. What I do is this: 1. Create one perfect installation on a loopback file, or in an LVM partition. 2. Create the matching Xen configuration file ensuring that a MAC address is specified in the networking setup. Then for each copy I wish to make I run: 1. Mount the pristine image (read-only!) 2. Create a new loopback image/LVM partition. 3. Copy recursively from source -> dest. 4. Copy Xen configuration file to a new name, update the IP adddress + MAC address. 5. Invoke a script to setup the new copy of the pristine systems networking details. 6. Unmount both images. This is completely automated, unfortunately sharing the script to update the Debian networking wouldn''t be useful since it just trashes /etc/network/interfaces - and that wouldn''t apply to your SuSE system. If you sit down and thinkg about the things that need to change in your copies I''m sure you could automate it similarly. I think that if you remember to give each instance a new MAC address in the *xen* configuration file you shouldn''t have any issues - indeed if you setup your master image to fetch its networking details via DHCP you might not even have to modify them at all, except to setup a hostname. Steve -- _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Jeff, Here is a little script I wrote to clone SLES10 DomUs. It creates a clone and gives a new mac, a new ip you specify and new host name you specify, modifys the config and image files. Currently it just clones one at a time. Usage - xenclone.sh vm1 new_vm new_ip Glen>>> On 6/27/2006 at 11:47 AM, in message<6025df6b0606271047u55d52128m92ceac994479e0d9@mail.gmail.com>, "Jeff Lane" <sundowner225@gmail.com> wrote: First of all, I have searched and searched,so please do not suggest that ;-) Anyway, I have a machine that I want to be able to create a LOT of domUs. The problem is, I cant just clone them... its a SLES10 system and the domUs are being created (right now at least) through YaST. I have seen only a little bit of documentation about templating, but nothing that really helps out in this. I have also read a bunch of sites and threads about how to build them by hand using bootstrap or some other means... that doesnt work. What I want to be able to do is build ONE domU and then create at least 20 - 30 copies of it. I cant just copy the domU''s filesystem and config file as they all end up with the same MAC address for the NIC. Even changing that in the config file does not help as when I boot the copy with a config that has a MAC ending in 99:9f, it STILL shows the MAC of the original copy... So, does anyone know of any documentation on using templates to create multiple domUs? Other than building them by hand, if at all possible. It''s not that I am lazy (I am) but I have to look at this from the end user perspective, and no one is going to want to go through the hassle of making 100+ domUs by hand when VMWare allows you to simply point and click to create templates and clones. Ok, that was a bit oversimplified, but VMWare DOES make it relatively simple. Is the templating functionality readily usable in Xen yet?? Cheers Jeff -- ------------------> Jeffrey Lane - W4KDH <------------------- www.jefflane.org Another cog in the great Corporate Wheel The internet has no government, no constitution, no laws, no rights, no police, no courts. Don''t talk about fairness or innocence, and don''t talk about what should be done. Instead, talk about what is being done and what will be done by the amorphous unreachable undefinable blob called "the internet user base." -Paul Vixie _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Jeff, MLN is a virtualization tool for Xen and UML that uses templates the way you describe it. However, it does not support SLES10 out of the box, so you might need to add support for it yourself (through plugins). Hopefully it gives you some insight into the use of templates. http://mln.sf.net Kyrre On Jun 27, 2006, at 7:47 PM, Jeff Lane wrote:> First of all, I have searched and searched,so please do not suggest > that ;-) > > Anyway, I have a machine that I want to be able to create a LOT of > domUs. The problem is, I cant just clone them... its a SLES10 system > and the domUs are being created (right now at least) through YaST. > > I have seen only a little bit of documentation about templating, but > nothing that really helps out in this. I have also read a bunch of > sites and threads about how to build them by hand using bootstrap or > some other means... that doesnt work. > > What I want to be able to do is build ONE domU and then create at > least 20 - 30 copies of it. I cant just copy the domU''s filesystem > and config file as they all end up with the same MAC address for the > NIC. Even changing that in the config file does not help as when I > boot the copy with a config that has a MAC ending in 99:9f, it STILL > shows the MAC of the original copy... > > So, does anyone know of any documentation on using templates to create > multiple domUs? Other than building them by hand, if at all possible. > It''s not that I am lazy (I am) but I have to look at this from the > end user perspective, and no one is going to want to go through the > hassle of making 100+ domUs by hand when VMWare allows you to simply > point and click to create templates and clones. > > Ok, that was a bit oversimplified, but VMWare DOES make it relatively > simple. Is the templating functionality readily usable in Xen yet?? > > Cheers > Jeff > > -- > ------------------> Jeffrey Lane - W4KDH <------------------- > www.jefflane.org > Another cog in the great > Corporate Wheel > > The internet has no government, no constitution, no laws, no > rights, no police, no courts. Don''t talk about fairness or > innocence, and don''t talk about what should be done. Instead, > talk about what is being done and what will be done by the > amorphous unreachable undefinable blob called "the internet > user base." -Paul Vixie > > _______________________________________________ > Xen-users mailing list > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users_______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users