Hello list;
Until recently I have been starting my HVM, "W2K3 R2 SP2"
DomU''s using
a .hvm configuration file with the "xm create domu.hvm" command.
Along
with this I have been using Virt-manager to interface with the machines.
I noticed, what I''m sure others have noticed, that when a DomU is
shutdown, "xm destroy domu" or "xm destroy dom#" the machine
disappears
from the Virtual-Manager. Somewhere along the way I read that in late
versions of Virt-Manager it is possible to see both running and stopped
machines. I did some research and found:
http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/enterprise-linux/fedora-7-xen-
first-look
Under the "not so good but necessary" the author describes how the
Fedora team have "followed in the Xensource model and begun to store all
VM configuration details in a database, referred to as the Xenstore."
The article goes on to suggest that if you have a running machine,
presumably created with the .hvm file, you can use "virsh dumpxml" to
create an XML dump of the XML config and then using "virsh define"
with
the resulting xml file to define the same machine so that it is stored
in the Xenstore. I tried this and it works - I can see my running and
shutdown machines in the virtual-manager using this method and start
machines from the virt-manager without having to issue "xm create".
(cool). But I also noticed something else. When I booted my first W2K3
HVM DomU which is running James'' 0.9.9 GPLPV drivers I get a plug and
play event on initial login for the "Xen Stub Device Driver - Virtual
Keyboard". I answered affirmatively to all the prompts and Windows
happily went about installing some drivers and completed
unceremoniously. I looked in device manager under, well under a lot of
sections, but in particular "human interface devices" but could only
find the standard keyboard. I wasn''t sure if this was a one off
(perhaps all the drivers didn''t install the first time on this
relatively new DomU) so I booted another one, that has been around a bit
longer, (booted multiple times) and it exhibited the same behaviour.
btw: (I am running Xen 3.2.1 on Centos 5.1)
My questions are:
1) Can anyone point me to more information about how the Xenstore
is used to manage DomU configuration? In particular with regards to
how virt-manager uses it exactly?
2) Why was a new hardware device found when I used the xenstore
instead of the .hvm file using the GPLPV drivers? (note I did not try
without the drivers.. why would anyone want to do that J ) Which leads
to..
3) What is the difference between starting the machines using xm
create or from "run" in Virtual Manager?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
Best Regards
Geoff
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