Re: NetBSD/Xen Howto

[Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>]

On Tue, Mar 07, 2006 at 08:09:14PM +0100, Rainer Brinkmöller wrote:
> some examples:
> 
> 1.
> First do a NetBSD/i386 installation 
> <http://www.netbsd.org/guide/en/chap-inst.html> of current or 3.0_BETA 
> as you usually do on i386 hardware.
> change to something like
> First do a NetBSD/i386 installation 
> <http://www.netbsd.org/guide/en/chap-inst.html> of the stable Release 
> 3.0, current or 3.0_BETA as you usually do on i386 hardware.
> 
> edit:
> i do not have any experience about current and 3.0_BETA.
> So it would be interesting if there is someone who cofirm that the way 
> to install, still is the same (normally it should be).

It is.

> 
> 2.
> Binary snapshots are available from 
> ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/i386/snapshot/.
> at the bsdforen.de wiki (German) i wrote something like:
> Actual it is recommended to use the i386pkg-3.0.iso 
> <ftp://iso3.de.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/iso/3.0/i386pkg-3.0.iso> image.

No, iso are one way to install but not the only one. I always do network
install as I have a network boot infrastructure installed, for example.
I changed the links to point to the 3.0 release and NetBSD-daily though.

> 3.
> In the moment i am a bit confused because of the list of machine 
> architectures for sysutils/xenkernel20.
> The way I understand the howto it is only possible to run Xen only on 
> i386 (i686).

It is. But you can run xentools on others to manage a Xen system remotely.

> Is it now possible to run it on the other machine architectures too?
> shouldn't the |xen-2.0.7-install.tgz | be recommended (instead to say 
> |xen-2.0.x-install.tgz)|?

Using xen-2.0.x-install.tgz means we don't need to update it when a new
Xen release appears :)

> 
> 4.
> How about to show an exampe for mounting /kern within fstab. For example:
> kernfs /kern kernfs rw

This is usually there after the install.

> 
> 5.
> I miss information of a few more xm commands. For example (if all these 
> are supported with NetBSD):
> xm help
> xm console (i know this works)
> xm balloon (as far i know it's not supportet yet - Manuel?)

Not yes

> xm destroy
> xm info
> As far as i know the commands 'xm shutdown', 'xm shutdown -R' and 'xm 
> shutdown -H' need the name or ID of the domain.
> This is Information is not in the howto and someone new to NetBSD and/or 
> Xen could be confused.

Well, all this is in the Xen documentation. The goal is not to redo the
Xen documentation here, just mention NetBSD-specific things.

> Also the key combination Ctrl + ] should be used to change from a domU 
> to the dom0. Especially if you work local.

xm console tell you this when you start it.

> 
> 6.
> Maybe a few more words to this part:
> # Kernel image file. This kernel will be loaded in the new domain.
> kernel = "/home/bouyer/netbsd-XENU"
> #kernel = "/home/bouyer/netbsd-INSTALL_XENU"
> 
> Especially that the second entry is needed to install NetBSD in a new 
> domU, so the hash should be set to the first entry
> instead to the second one for installation.

This is mentionned later in the howto.

> Also that the 
> netbsd-INSTALL_XENU kernel is part of the xenkernel20 package.

No, it's not. It's part of the i386 binary release.

> 
> 7.
> Is it really necessary to show the |/usr/pkg/etc/xen/vif-bridge| for 
> xvif?.? configuration file?
> This will available when you did install xentools20. Maybe it is enough 
> to write down that this file could be found at /usr/pkg/etc/xen.

Is it in /usr/pkg/etc/xen or only in /usr/share/examples ?
I just added a note that there is a working vif-bridge file in the
xentools20

> 
> 8.
> "load the INSTALL_XENU kernel "
> exact:
> "load the netbsd-INSTALL_XENU kernel "

netbsd-INSTALL_XENU is the binary provided with a binary distrib, INSTALL_XENU
is the name of the kernel config file to generate this binary.
Depends on what we're talking about :)

> 
> 9.
> Maybe a reference to never execute the shutdown command inside a domU

Why ? I do this regulary and I didn't notice problems.

> 
> //@Manuel:
> Would it be possible to integrate the command execution of "cd /dev && 
> sh MAKEDEV xen" into the xentools20,

No, because you can install xentools on system which may not run Xen.
This would break the build on those systems if it's not a NetBSD/i386

> or maybe better into the xenkernel20 installation?

I don't use xenkernel20 :)

-- 
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>
     NetBSD: 26 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference
--