Re: [Xen-users] Some Doubts regarding HVM

["trilok nuwal" <tc.nuwal@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 4/12/07, Petersson, Mats <Mats.Petersson@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto: xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
> trilok nuwal
> Sent: 12 April 2007 07:46
> To: Xen list
> Subject: [Xen-users] Some Doubts regarding HVM
>
> Hi All,
>
> My dom0  REHL5 xen OS.
>
> I installed RHEL4U4  on disk /dev/cciss/c0d1. I exported this
> to domU in config file as hda as below.
>
> disk = [ 'phy:/dev/cciss/c0d1,hda,w' , 'phy:/dev/sdb2,hdb2,w' ]
>
> hda is exported properly but my other partition /dev/sdb2 is
> not exported to Domu.
>
> And if I change to disk with full disk then it works fine.
>
> disk = [ 'phy:/dev/cciss/c0d1,hda,w' , 'phy:/dev/sdb,hdb,w' ]
>
> So conclusion is that we can't export a partition in HVM
> case. Is it correct ?

That is correct. The reason for this is that the hardware emulation
layer doesn't know anything about partitions. You can of course make a
partition into a disk if you want, such as:
'phy:/dev/sdb2,hdb,w'

I tried this phy:/dev/sdb2,hdb,w. So in DomU, i am able to export and mount /dev/sdb2 partition.
So that mean, we can insatll an Linux OS on a partition and can export this partition as disk and can mount in
guest OS as disk. It looks fine to me.

What u say. Should this work, i wll do some work on this and let u know wht i get ?

But the hardware (or io) emulation doesn't have a clue what a partition
is, because partitions are just a way for the OS to partition a disk
into sections (it used to be really important because disks could only
have a certain size [x number of sectors, blocks or clusters, whichever
the file-system utilized], but nowadays, with 64-bit pointers in
file-systems, it's pretty much just a organizational tool to keep
different types of data separated from each other).
>
> If this then we cant install a OS on a partition and start a
> HVM domain.

That would be correct.
>
> My problem is that on my laptop i have a single hard disk, so
> i can't install a Guest OS on this, because this require a
> full disk to be exported to guest OS.

Get a USB-disk, perhaps?

I don't believe Xen is meant to solve this problem, really. [And I have
some doubt that you'd actually be successful in running a native OS and
the same OS as guest-OS, but that's a different story].

--
Mats
>
> Any help..
>
> Thanks,
> Trilok
>
>

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