create xen VM via xenguest-install.pyi

FC5Zimbra - Xen Wiki

Create And Boot The Initial Xen Guest

The initial Xen guest domain will be named xen0, and will be built on a logical volume. First, run a couple of checks to verify the Xen kernel booted and that xend is running OK.

• uname -r
     2.6.15-1.2054_FC5xen0

• xm list
     Name                              ID Mem(MiB) VCPUs State  Time(s)
     Domain-0                           0     2487     2 r-----   467.5
  

Next, remount the install disc, start the vsftpd server, and create a 2 GB logical volume named xen0 (for the first guest).

• mount -o loop /dev/hda /var/ftp/pub
  service vsftpd start
  lvcreate -L 2G -n xen0 xen
  

Use the xenguest-install.py tool to create the first Xen guest image. If all goes well, a text-based install script will start. The various options to xenguest-install.py are shown

• -n xen0 Name Of Xen Guest

• -f xen0 Pathname To Logical Volume To Use For Guest

• -r 256 Memory To Allocate For Guest

• -l ftp://192.168.151.6/pub/ Location Of FC5 Install Disk. The IP address is to the vsftpd server. Since the guest won't know the DNS domain, use the raw IP address. The guest is connecting over a virtual IP network, so 127.0.0.1 won't work either.

  xenguest-install.py -n xen0 -f /dev/xen/xen0 -r 256 -l ftp://192.168.151.6/pub/
  

The xenguest-install.py script will start a text-based installation script almost identical to what you would see with a default FC5 installation. Early in the installation, the option to switch to a VNC-based GUI will be presented. Text-based is quicker, but VNC does a better job of package selection (and it's kind of cool), so take your pick.

• To use the VNC method, connect to the provided IP address from a VNC client from elsewhere on the network. A GUI install script will appear in the VNC client window. Proceed through install process, setting parameters as necessary. The script creates a virtual hard disk, /dev/xvda. Unless you have specific needs, you should probably let the install script automatically partition the virtual disk. Do a custom package selection, deselecting everything but Yum and OpenSSH server/client packages. Complete the installation.
• To use the text-based install process, everything will be functionally the same as the VNC method above, except for deselecting software packages. You won't be able to drill down into package groups, so just deselect everything. This will install a few unnecessary packages and services, which can be removed later if necessary.

After the guest installation script complete, control is returned to the xenguest-install.py script, which will hopefully indicate success and then exit. It is now (way past) time to start the first Xen guest. To start the guest, use the xm command. The xm command is used to manage all Xen clients. For a synopsis of availabe options, simply enter xm.

• xm create -c xen0
  

The console window of the guest will appear, including a text-based GRUB screen, followed by normal boot/init messages, concluding with a login screen. To break from the console and return to the host, enter CTRL-] (control key plus the right-bracket key). To list the running Xen guests from the host (Dom0), use the "xm list" command as shown below.

• xm list
     Name                              ID Mem(MiB) VCPUs State  Time(s)
     Domain-0                           0     2487     2 r-----   755.5
     xen0                              18      256     1 -b----    14.4  

To return to the Xen guest's console, enter the following command from the host.

• xm console xen0