Table of Contents

Debian_Etch_Xen_Install

= Install Xen with Debian Etch =

Backup any Previous Boot and Xen Configs

cp -R /etc/xen /root/ cp -R /boot /root/

Uninstall any previous Xen software

If you are running an old Xen, the software and kernel can be removed while in dom0 (base xen instance). dpkg -l | grep -i xen apt-get remove xen-tools etc.

Main Install

apt-get install linux-image-2.6-xen-686 xen-hypervisor-3.0.3-1-i386-pae xen-tools bridge-utils libc6-xen sysfsutils Note: The pae hypervisor was the one which was required<br> “Debian Xen System and PAE….this is a well known problem, because the Debian Xen Team cancelled support for non-pae kernels” - thanks serverchef.

Note: re libc6-xen: It eliminates moving /lib/tls to /lib/tls.disabled (supposedly).

Check Grub && Reboot

Check /boot/grub/menu.lst to see if the Xen Kernel and initrd.img are added in correctly.

After reboot, check xen with: “xm list”, “xm top”. Also check “ifconfig”, which should show: peth0 and vif0.0.

Setting up dom0 correctly to use Network Bridge

vi /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp #xend-relocation-server yes (vif-script vif-bridge) (dom0-min-mem 128) #(network-script network-dummy) #(xend-relocation-hosts-allow '^localhost$') (network-script network-bridge)

Setup Xen Guest Domains - domU

The setup is the exact same as here: Create_DomU

Extra Tweaking of domU Required

On all domU xen config files, make sure to specify a fixed MAC address. Otherwise udev will increment the domU eth0 to eth1 etc. This problem is further discussed here vi /etc/xen/domains/name_of_vm vif = bridge=xenbr0'

On all domU's: apt-get install linux-image-2.6-xen-686

To fix up “4gb seg fixup” errors on domU's: mv /lib/tls /lib/tls.disabled /lib/tls will be repopulated when apting new packages and updating libc. A more permament solution can be found here: http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/DebianTlsLibcDiversion http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=405223 The domU's need to be rebooted for this to take effect and for the “4gb seg fixup” errors to stop.

RAID 1

Please read: http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/pkg-mdadm/mdadm/trunk/debian/README.upgrading-2.5.3?op=file It mainly details with raid1 when migrating from sarge to etch however.

Extra Step - NOT Required

This step below was only required for sarge backports. vi /etc/initramfs-tools/modules #include the following raid1

update-initramfs -u update-initramfs -u -a #for all kernels


That should be it. There are a few issues I was having with root of dom0 loading of /dev/md0. I will post the fixes and details here later.