xen live cd - adding windows guests

download xen live cd image and burn it to a cd and boot the cd in your computer

it took ten min to boot in my case.

i have a 160 GB harddisk, with one 1GB NetBSD partition; the rest are not partitioned.

i want to install windows on Xen.

add a partition
after you have boot the Xen live CD, cretate a partition by running fdisk.

fdisk /dev/sda (sd means SCSI but i am sure my harddisk is not SCSI)

n
p

i added a primary parition of 50GB

create a filesystem for the partition
mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sda2

mount it
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt

to be continued....

Xen using netbsd

need to install multiple Window servers on my laptop for some testing... one domain controller, one offering certificate service (pki), one as file server, and one Vista as client...


i can't imagine using type 1 hypervisor for this task... i only have 2G RAM on my laptop.. so virtualbox and vmware server is out..

i am left with Xen and VMware ESX Server , but the latest ESX server only runs on 64bit hardware and it don't support intel cpu with emt64 extension... while at least this is what i found, i maybe wrong as i don't have much time ...

so i move on to using Xen... either ubuntu and debian... ubuntu does not offer dom0 kernel now and i saw many criticism on running Xen with Ubuntu..

i did tried it out but it is some troublesome and time is running short

so i went to debian... but debian didn't install on my HP EliteBook... oh ...

i will try netbsd now... i always prefer *bsd more...

Xen

Ganeti
Ganeti is a cluster virtual server management software tool built on top of existing virtualization technologies such as Xen or KVM and other Open Source software.
http://code.google.com/p/ganeti/


http://www.serverwatch.com/news/article.php/3770221/Hypervisor-Face-Off-KVM-vs-Xen-vs-VMware.htm

"KVM benchmarking is extremely selective," Crosby commented. "Where it does benefit in performance, it does so by sacrificing what we view as fundamental security concerns for enterprise virtualization deployments. Xen's deep separation of trust domains costs a bit in performance but provides the hard-line separation required for any secure deployment of virtualization."


Bruce also noted KVM relies on strong CPU performance with very limited support for para-virtualization. As such, Bruce argued it is difficult to achieve top performance in a KVM virtualized environment without powerful hardware underneath. Conversely, in his view, Xen offers strong support for para-virtualization for modified Windows guests and modified Linux guests to achieve near-native performance.


http://virt.kernelnewbies.org/TechComparison - features and performance of the various virtualization technologies available for Linux


Diff between para virtualization and hardware assisted virtualization

To run OS unmodified on Xen , u need a cpu that support hardware virtualization. You need to use HVM in Xen to run Windows.

http://www.virtuatopia.com/index.php/An_Overview_of_Virtualization_Techniques

xen live cd
http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/LiveCD
Xenoppix http://unit.aist.go.jp/itri/knoppix/xen/index-en.html

installing Windows on Xen
http://www.virtuatopia.com/index.php/Virtualizing_Windows_Server_2008_with_Xen
http://mediakey.dk/~cc/howto-install-windows-xp-vista-on-xen/

wifi
http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenWifi - sharing a wireless nic between dom0 and domU.

You might need http://ebtables.sourceforge.net/ if your wireless NIC does not allow packets with a MAC that is different from its own.




Xen setup docs that i found:

http://www.virtuatopia.com/index.php/Xen_Virtualization_Essentials

Xen on OpenSuse
http://en.opensuse.org/Installing_Xen3

Xen on Debian 5
http://www.howtoforge.com/virtualization-with-xen-on-debian-lenny-amd64

xen tools http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/533

http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/HowTos
http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_setup_xen3_debian
http://www.packtpub.com/files/Xen-Virtualisation-Sample-Chapter-Chapter-2-Running-Xen.pdf
http://www.howtoforge.com/xen_gui_fedora_7_desktop