Alpine Linux Xen Dom0 LiveCD

Roger Pau Monne
Fri, 18 May 2012 10:33:18 -0000

Hello,

Alpine Linux has just released a Xen Dom0 LiveCD that contains a Linux
Kernel 3.3.6 with PaX and grsec patches and Xen 4.1.2 with the CVE
fixes. This LiveCD doesn''t include any kind of X11 desktop, as it is
intended for server use only.

The LiveCD is part of the Alpine Linux distribution, and will be updated
every time there is an Alpine Linux release, ensuring that the users
always get the latest versions of the software.

For those of you that don''t know what Alpine Linux has to offer,
here''s
a little extract from the Alpine Linux webpage:

Alpine Linux was designed with security in mind. It has proactive
security features, such as PaX and SSP, that prevent security holes from
being exploited.

Alpine Linux uses the uClibc C library and all of the base tools from
BusyBox. These are normally found on embedded systems and are smaller
than the tools found on GNU/Linux systems.

The traditional GNU/Linux base system is over 100MB in size (excluding
the kernel), while the base system in Alpine Linux is only 4-5MB in size
(excluding the kernel).

It''s great for experimenting: Since the system configuration can be
backed up to a single file, you will be able to test configurations
before deploying them to production systems.

(You can find much more information on the Alpine Linux web page:
http://alpinelinux.org/about)

Also, Alpine Linux has the option to run from RAM, even when installed
to a HDD or USB, allowing the user to save it''s changes on a USB,
floppy
or other medium which then gets read at boot to leave the system as it
was before the reboot. This is specially interesting for Xen Dom0, since
it allows to have the whole system on RAM, which is immune to HDD
crashes (you could have access to your Dom0 even after and HDD crash)
and doesn''t consume I/O resources.

This is still the first and experimental release of this LiveCD, so I
would like to encourage Xen users to test it, and report back with the
results.

The LiveCD can be found at: http://alpinelinux.org/downloads

Regards, Roger.