Hi * I''m training a bit on the subject "Populating a guest image". My goal is to build a guest image of Scientific Linux (SL) and clone it whenever necessary. I''m trying both xen-strap (http://www.gridpp.ac.uk/wiki/Xen-strap) and virt-install utilities to install into a LVM (wanted a non-graphical tool) . Xen-strap installs very well SL creating separate swap and root partitions, which is cool for later backup. This utility creates the domU guest kernel on dom0. Thus, the guest configuration files reads kernel and ramdisk from dom0. virt-install does the same good job, but the guest kernel is installed on the domU boot. Guest configuration file uses in this case the pygrub bootloader. My questions are: 1 - Virt-install creates self-contained guests (kernel inside domU) whereas xen-strap not. Which one of these is easier to migrate to other similar physical machines? 2 - Is it possible to convert a domU which reads the kernel from dom0 to a self-contained guest, like the one created by virt-install? If yes, how? Cheers, Nuno _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 4:27 PM, Ferreira, N. L. (Nuno) <n.l.ferreira@uu.nl> wrote:> 1 - Virt-install creates self-contained guests (kernel inside domU) whereas > xen-strap not. > Which one of these is easier to migrate to other similar physical machines?Definitely self-contained guests. That way : - you can easily migrate domUs without having to worry what kernel is available on dom0. For example, migrating from Linux dom0 to Opensolaris dom0. - When setup correctly, you have the possibility to use the same image for both PV and HVM domU.> > 2 - Is it possible to convert a domU which reads the kernel from dom0 to a > self-contained guest, like the one created by virt-install? If yes, how? >Yes : - make sure a kernel-xen (or similar) package is installed on domU - setup initrd and grub.conf on domU correctly - modify domU xen config to use a bootloader (e.g. pygrub) instead of a kernel and initrd Regards, Fajar _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users