RH133 Unit 10 Virtualization with Xen

Objectives

Upon completion of this unit, you should be able to:

1) Define virtualization

2) Understand Xen terminology

3) Xen Tools

Virtualizaiton with Xen

1) Advantages of Virtualization

- Effective resource usage

- Managability

- Security

2) Key Concepts of Xen

- Small Hypervisor

- First “Domain” manages the system

- Supports full and para virtualization

Hardware Considerations

1) Minimum Requirements:

- Processor with PAE support

- 256 MiB RAM per domain

- 6 GiB hard drive per domain

2) Additionaly consideration

- CPU with VT/SVM for full virtualization

- Shared storage for live migration

- Actual Storage needs will vary by application

Preparing Domain-0

1) Install the Domain0 as normal

2) Boot the Xen hypervisor

3) Start the xend management daemon

Virtual Resources

1) CPU

- use VCPUs (virtual CPUs)

- need not map directly to real CUPs

2) Storage

- Block devices

- Simple files

3) Network Devices

- Bridged or routed to Domain0

- By default mapped to xenbr0

Domain-U Configuration

1) Defined per Domain-U

2) Virtual Block Devices

3) CPUs

4) Networking

5) /etc/xen/domain

Installing a new Domain-U

1) virt-manager

- Graphical frontend for managing domains

- Provides a wizard for setting up a new domains

- Command line alternative.xm

2) Define name of the domain

3) Select storage type and number of CUPs

4) Specify the location of the installer and optionally a kickstart file

Domain Management with xm

1) Command line managment tool

2) Controlling domains

- xm <create|destory>

- xm <pause|unpause>

- xm <save|restore> filename

- xm <shutdown|reboot>

3) Monitoring

- xm list

- xentop

- xen console

Activating Domain on boot

1) xendomains Sys-V init script

2) Starts/Stops Domain_Us

3) must link domain config files to /etc/xen/auto

End of Unit 10

1) Questions and Answers

2) Summary

- Xen Terminology

- xm command

- xendomains