[Xen-users] Re: Installing a new domU

[Mark Hurenkamp <mark.hurenkamp@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,


This just happens to be something I tried last weekend :-)
What I did was download 'mini.iso' cdrom image from Ubuntu Breezy,
which can be used for a net based install (but looking at the
method I used, a cdrom based install might work as well).

Here's what I did:
1) Copy the initrd.gz from the iso image, and unzip it.
2) I mounted the image using -o loop, mostly just to look under
the hood, to see if it might work, but while at it, I removed
the vc2-vc4 entries in inittab since they complain otherwise.
3) Create an sparse image file of a disk (not partition, but entire
disk!) for the os to use as hda during install. In my case, I used 
a sparse file I created using dd (5.4G size). I used a LVM partition (5G) for 
hda1 and another for swap on hda2 (256M).
4) in my config I put the following line:
disk = [ 'file:/root/initrd,sda1,w' , 'file:/etc/xen/breezy_hda,hda,w', 
'phy:/dev/linux/breezy,hda1,w' , 'phy:/dev/linux/breezy_swap,hda2,w' , ]
and of course:
root = "/dev/sda1"
(xen will now use the sparse file for partition table handling of /dev/hda, 
and the two LVM partitions for accessing /dev/hda1 and /dev/hda2. Don't know 
if this is intended, or will stay this way, but it worked for me).
5) After creating the swap image, fire up xen domU with a decent kernel (I 
used a homebuild kernel based on FC4-xen0 config).
6) The Ubuntu text-mode installer will come up, and will complain about a few 
things (the partition table being missing a.o.), but you can fix that using 
the install tool manual partition option.
7) After selecting a few basics like timezone, locale, and networking, I got 
the installer to download stuff and start the basic installation.
8) After some time, it was ready, and asked me to remove install medium so 
that it could reboot. So I edited the two lines in my config file to read:
disk = [ 'file:/etc/xen/breezy_hda,hda,w', 'phy:/dev/linux/breezy,hda1,w' , 
'phy:/dev/linux/breezy_swap,hda2,w' , ]
and:
root = "/dev/hda1"
9) The installer shutdown the domain, and so I restarted it with xm.
10) The installer finishes the basic installation, and after that, the
system was ready for use. (There did seem to be something wrong with the
package selection though, I could not preselect anything, it just sent me back 
to the main menu...).
11) I installed kde and gdm using yum, configured gdm for xdmcp, and setup my 
X server on my dom0 for indirect login. 
12) Et voila! There's the ubuntu login screen :-), I am able to use it asif
I had installed it right from the cdrom onto the bare metal :-)

Hope this inspires other people to try the regular installers, and hopefully 
distributers will provide xen-based install images in the future, I don't 
think it would be too hard.
(I guess I should write-up a decent howto about this procedure, but am 
currently lacking the time... I am willing to answer any questions though :-)


Keep up the good work guys!


Mark.

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