How To Create a LiveCD for Xen

[M P Sairam]

Hi,
    I want to create a live CD which can work in Xen. can any one help me?
    I googled it but i didn't get good enough material.

Thanks in advance,
--
Sairam

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[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 03:14:35PM +0530, M P Sairam wrote:
>  Hi,
>     I want to create a live CD which can work in Xen. can any one help me?
>     I googled it but i didn't get good enough material. 
You mean a live CD which can be booted as a Xen guest?  Or a live CD
which contains (eg) a Xen hypervisor?

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Emerging Technologies, Red Hat  http://et.redhat.com/~rjones
virt-top is 'top' for virtual machines.  Tiny program with many
powerful monitoring features, net stats, disk stats, logging, etc.
http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-top

[M P Sairam]

Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
>  On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 03:14:35PM +0530, M P Sairam wrote:
>    
> > Hi,
> >    I want to create a live CD which can work in Xen. can any one help me?
> >    I googled it but i didn't get good enough material.
> >     
>
>  You mean a live CD which can be booted as a Xen guest?  Or a live CD
>  which contains (eg) a Xen hypervisor?
>
>  Rich.
>
>     
I mean a live CD which can be booted as a Xen guest

Sairam


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This email message (including any attachments) is for the sole use of the intended
recipient(s) 
and may contain confidential, proprietary and privileged information. Any unauthorized
review, 
use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, 
please immediately notify the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original
message. 
Thank you.
 
Intoto Inc.

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 05:25:41PM +0530, M P Sairam wrote:
>  Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 03:14:35PM +0530, M P Sairam wrote:
> >   
> >> Hi,
> >>    I want to create a live CD which can work in Xen. can any one help me?
> >>    I googled it but i didn't get good enough material.
> >>     
> > You mean a live CD which can be booted as a Xen guest?  Or a live CD
> > which contains (eg) a Xen hypervisor?
> >
>  I mean a live CD which can be booted as a Xen guest 
I haven't tried it for Xen (only for QEMU/KVM where it definitely
works), but you should just be able to boot the CDROM directly.

Try creating XML configuration following this example:

  http://libvirt.org/format.html#Fully1

and set the cdrom source file to point to the ISO file.  You can leave
out the hard disk, or point it at an empty file or existing image
depending on what you want.  Then do:

  virsh define my.xml
  virsh start fv0

(where fv0 is whatever you chose as the domain name within the XML
file).

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Emerging Technologies, Red Hat  http://et.redhat.com/~rjones
virt-p2v converts physical machines to virtual machines.  Boot with a
live CD or over the network (PXE) and turn machines into Xen guests.
http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-p2v

[Daniel P. Berrange]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 01:28:27PM +0000, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
>  On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 05:25:41PM +0530, M P Sairam wrote:
>  > Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
>  >> On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 03:14:35PM +0530, M P Sairam wrote:
>  >>   
>  >>> Hi,
>  >>>    I want to create a live CD which can work in Xen. can any one help me?
>  >>>    I googled it but i didn't get good enough material.
>  >>>     
>  >> You mean a live CD which can be booted as a Xen guest?  Or a live CD
>  >> which contains (eg) a Xen hypervisor?
>  >>
>  > I mean a live CD which can be booted as a Xen guest
>  
>  I haven't tried it for Xen (only for QEMU/KVM where it definitely
>  works), but you should just be able to boot the CDROM directly.
>  
>  Try creating XML configuration following this example: 
You can do this more directly with virt-install

[quote src="virt-install(1)"]
       Run a Live CD image under Xen fullyvirt, in diskless environment

         # virt-install \
              --hvm \
              --name demo \
              --ram 500 \
              --nodisk \
              --livecd \
              --vnc \
              --cdrom /root/fedora7live.iso
[/quote]

Regards,
Dan.
-- 
|: Red Hat, Engineering, Boston   -o-   http://people.redhat.com/berrange/ :|
|: http://libvirt.org  -o-  http://virt-manager.org  -o-  http://ovirt.org :|
|: http://autobuild.org       -o-         http://search.cpan.org/~danberr/ :|
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[M P Sairam]

Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
>  On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 01:28:27PM +0000, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
>    
> > On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 05:25:41PM +0530, M P Sairam wrote:
> >     
> >> Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> >>       
> >>> On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 03:14:35PM +0530, M P Sairam wrote:
> >>>   
> >>>         
> >>>> Hi,
> >>>>    I want to create a live CD which can work in Xen. can any one help
> me?
> >>>>    I googled it but i didn't get good enough material.
> >>>>     
> >>>>           
> >>> You mean a live CD which can be booted as a Xen guest?  Or a live CD
> >>> which contains (eg) a Xen hypervisor?
> >>>
> >>>         
> >> I mean a live CD which can be booted as a Xen guest
> >>       
> > I haven't tried it for Xen (only for QEMU/KVM where it definitely
> > works), but you should just be able to boot the CDROM directly.
> >
> > Try creating XML configuration following this example:
> >     
>
>  You can do this more directly with virt-install
>
>  [quote src="virt-install(1)"]
>         Run a Live CD image under Xen fullyvirt, in diskless environment
>
>           # virt-install \
>                --hvm \
>                --name demo \
>                --ram 500 \
>                --nodisk \
>                --livecd \
>                --vnc \
>                --cdrom /root/fedora7live.iso
>  [/quote]
>
>  Regards,
>  Dan.
>     
Thanks for the reply, does booting a live CD requires hardware support 
in Xen?

My processor is pentium 2.8GHz

Sairam

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This email message (including any attachments) is for the sole use of the intended
recipient(s) 
and may contain confidential, proprietary and privileged information. Any unauthorized
review, 
use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, 
please immediately notify the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original
message. 
Thank you.
 
Intoto Inc.

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 07:37:42PM +0530, M P Sairam wrote:
>  Thanks for the reply, does booting a live CD requires hardware
> support in 
>  Xen? 
In Xen yes:

> >          # virt-install \
> >               --hvm \ 
However QEMU will happily boot a CD-ROM ISO without hardware support.

>  My processor is pentium 2.8GHz 
That's not enough to tell.  Have a look at /proc/cpuinfo, flags, which
should contain 'vmx' if hardware-assisted fullvirt is supported.  (For
Intel you may also need to enable it in the BIOS).

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Emerging Technologies, Red Hat  http://et.redhat.com/~rjones
virt-top is 'top' for virtual machines.  Tiny program with many
powerful monitoring features, net stats, disk stats, logging, etc.
http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-top