HowtoForge - Linux Howtos and Tutorials - Xen

Virtualization With Xen On CentOS 6.2 (x86_64) (Paravirtualization & Hardware Virtualization)

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:36:11 +0100

Virtualization With Xen On CentOS 6.2 (x86_64) (Paravirtualization & Hardware Virtualization)

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to install Xen (version 4.1.2) on a CentOS 6.2 (x86_64) system. Xen lets you create guest operating systems (*nix operating systems like Linux and FreeBSD), so called "virtual machines" or domUs, under a host operating system (dom0). Using Xen you can separate your applications into different virtual machines that are totally independent from each other, but still use the same hardware.

Paravirtualization With Xen On CentOS 5.6 (x86_64)

Sun, 22 May 2011 19:18:47 +0200

Paravirtualization With Xen On CentOS 5.6 (x86_64)

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to install Xen (version 3.0.3) on a CentOS 5.6 (x86_64) system. Xen lets you create guest operating systems (*nix operating systems like Linux and FreeBSD), so called "virtual machines" or domUs, under a host operating system (dom0). Using Xen you can separate your applications into different virtual machines that are totally independent from each other (e.g. a virtual machine for a mail server, a virtual machine for a high-traffic web site, another virtual machine that serves your customers' web sites, a virtual machine for DNS, etc.), but still use the same hardware. This saves money, and what is even more important, it's more secure. If the virtual machine of your DNS server gets hacked, it has no effect on your other virtual machines. Plus, you can move virtual machines from one Xen server to the next one.

Paravirtualization With Xen 4.0 On Debian Squeeze (AMD64)

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:14:11 +0200

Paravirtualization With Xen 4.0 On Debian Squeeze (AMD64)

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to install Xen 4.0 on a Debian Squeeze (6.0) system (AMD64) and create paravirtualized guests. Xen lets you create guest operating systems (*nix operating systems like Linux and FreeBSD), so called "virtual machines" or domUs, under a host operating system (dom0). Using Xen you can separate your applications into different virtual machines that are totally independent from each other (e.g. a virtual machine for a mail server, a virtual machine for a high-traffic web site, another virtual machine that serves your customers' web sites, a virtual machine for DNS, etc.), but still use the same hardware. This saves money, and what is even more important, it's more secure. If the virtual machine of your DNS server gets hacked, it has no effect on your other virtual machines. Plus, you can move virtual machines from one Xen server to the next one.

Installing Debian Squeeze (6.0) domU On CentOS 5.5 x86_64 dom0

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 10:41:58 +0100

Installing Debian Squeeze (6.0) domU On CentOS 5.5 x86_64 dom0

This tutorial shows how to create a Debian Squeeze (6.0) domU on dom0 running CentOS 5.5 x86_64.

How To Upgrade Debian Lenny (Debian 5.0) To Squeeze (Debian 6.0) On Xen VPS

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 17:37:44 +0100

How To Upgrade Debian Lenny (Debian 5.0) To Squeeze (Debian 6.0) On Xen VPS

This tutorial shows how to upgrade a Debian Lenny (Debian 5.0) installation on a Xen based Virtual Private Server (VPS) to Squeeze (Debian 6.0) including kernel update, dependency based boot sequencing and conversion to UUIDs. If you do it the usual Debian way just with apt-get dist-upgrade you will most likely end up with an unbootable system. This is mainly because the update of grub fails.

Paravirtualization With Xen On CentOS 5.4 (x86_64)

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 17:44:39 +0100

Paravirtualization With Xen On CentOS 5.4 (x86_64)

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to install Xen (version 3.0.3) on a CentOS 5.4 (x86_64) system. Xen lets you create guest operating systems (*nix operating systems like Linux and FreeBSD), so called "virtual machines" or domUs, under a host operating system (dom0). Using Xen you can separate your applications into different virtual machines that are totally independent from each other (e.g. a virtual machine for a mail server, a virtual machine for a high-traffic web site, another virtual machine that serves your customers' web sites, a virtual machine for DNS, etc.), but still use the same hardware. This saves money, and what is even more important, it's more secure. If the virtual machine of your DNS server gets hacked, it has no effect on your other virtual machines. Plus, you can move virtual machines from one Xen server to the next one.

How To Enable Networking In Xen Guests On Hetzner's DS Servers (Debian Etch)

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:35:26 +0100

How To Enable Networking In Xen Guests On Hetzner's DS Servers (Debian Etch)

This tutorial shows how you can enable networking in Xen guests (domU) on Hetzner's DS servers. With the DS servers, you can get a subnet of eight additional IPs (or more) - usually that subnet is different from the subnet that the server's main IP is from. The problem is that these additional IPs are bound to the MAC address of the host system (dom0) - Hetzner's routers will dump IP packets if they come from an unknown MAC address. This means we cannot use Xen's bridged mode, but must switch to Xen's routed mode where the host system (dom0) acts as the gateway for the guests.

How To Enable Networking In Xen Guests On Hetzner's New EQ Servers (Debian Lenny)

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:38:13 +0100

How To Enable Networking In Xen Guests On Hetzner's New EQ Servers (Debian Lenny)

This tutorial shows how you can enable networking in Xen guests (domU) on Hetzner's new EQ servers. With the new EQ servers, you can get up to three additional IPs that are in the same subnet as the server's main IP. The problem is that these additional IPs are bound to the MAC address of the host system (dom0) - Hetzner's routers will dump IP packets if they come from an unknown MAC address. This means we cannot use Xen's bridged mode, but must switch to Xen's routed mode where the host system (dom0) acts as the gateway for the guests.

Paravirtualized OpenSolaris 2008.11 domU Using Debian Lenny

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:50:26 +0200

Paravirtualized OpenSolaris 2008.11 domU Using Debian Lenny

This guide will help you to create an OpenSolaris paravirtualized Xen guest under Debian Lenny.

Installation And Setup Guide For DRBD, OpenAIS, Pacemaker + Xen On OpenSUSE 11.1

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:48:34 +0200

Installation And Setup Guide For DRBD, OpenAIS, Pacemaker + Xen On OpenSUSE 11.1

The following will install and configure DRBD, OpenAIS, Pacemaker and Xen on OpenSUSE 11.1 to provide highly-available virtual machines. This setup does not utilize Xen's live migration capabilities. Instead, VMs will be started on the secondary node as soon as failure of the primary is detected. Xen virtual disk images are replicated between nodes using DRBD and all services on the cluster will be managed by OpenAIS and Pacemaker. The following setup utilizes DRBD 8.3.2 and Pacemaker 1.0.4. It is important to note that DRBD 8.3.2 has come a long way since previous versions in terms of compatibility with Pacemaker. In particular, a new DRBD OCF resource agent script and new DRBD-level resource fencing features. This configuration will not work with older releases of DRBD.

Paravirtualized Gentoo 2009 domU Using Debian Lenny

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:05:52 +0200

Paravirtualized Gentoo 2009 domU Using Debian Lenny

This guide will help you to create gentoo paravirtualized xen guest under Debian Lenny. Since Gentoo 2008.0 release is deprecated, so we will use current gentoo stage.

Virtualization With XenServer 5.5.0

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:44:32 +0200

Virtualization With XenServer 5.5.0

This Howto covers the installation of XenServer 5.5.0 and the creation of virtual machines with the XenCenter administrator console. XenServer is a free virtualization platform from Citrix, the company behind the well known Xen virtualization engine. XenServer makes it easy to create, run and manage Xen virtual machines with the XenCenter administrator console. The XenServer installation CD contains a full Linux distribution which is customized to run XenServer.

Paravirtualization With Xen On CentOS 5.3 (x86_64)

Thu, 14 May 2009 17:11:47 +0200

Paravirtualization With Xen On CentOS 5.3 (x86_64)

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to install Xen (version 3.0.3) on a CentOS 5.3 (x86_64) system. Xen lets you create guest operating systems (*nix operating systems like Linux and FreeBSD), so called "virtual machines" or domUs, under a host operating system (dom0). Using Xen you can separate your applications into different virtual machines that are totally independent from each other (e.g. a virtual machine for a mail server, a virtual machine for a high-traffic web site, another virtual machine that serves your customers' web sites, a virtual machine for DNS, etc.), but still use the same hardware. This saves money, and what is even more important, it's more secure. If the virtual machine of your DNS server gets hacked, it has no effect on your other virtual machines. Plus, you can move virtual machines from one Xen server to the next one.

Creating A Fully Encrypted Para-Virtualised Xen Guest System Using Debian Lenny

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:35:15 +0200

Creating A Fully Encrypted Para-Virtualised Xen Guest System Using Debian Lenny

This document explains how to set up a fully encrypted para-virtualized XEN instance. In this howto, the host system is running Debian Etch, while the guest system to be installed will be using Debian Lenny. If you are concerned about your privacy, you might want to consider using hard disk encryption to protect your valuable private data from spying eyes. Usually, the easiest way would be to use your distribution's installer to set up a fully encrypted system; I think most recent Linux distributions support this. However, when you are using XEN to provide virtualization, there are situations where you might not want to encrypt your whole computer with all guest instances, but instead only encrypt one OS instance. This howto will deal with exactly this situation. It assumes that the XEN host system is already up and running.

Xen Live Migration Of An LVM-Based Virtual Machine With iSCSI On Debian Lenny

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:16:40 +0200

Xen Live Migration Of An LVM-Based Virtual Machine With iSCSI On Debian Lenny

This guide explains how you can do a live migration of an LVM-based virtual machine (domU) from one Xen host to the other. I will use iSCSI to provide shared storage for the virtual machines in this tutorial. Both Xen hosts and the iSCSI target are running on Debian Lenny in this article.