Re: Creating linux domUs

["Luke S. Crawford" <lsc%prgmr.com@localhost>]

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 12:54:38PM -0700, Jeff Rizzo wrote:
> Does anyone have any tips for creating linux domUs to run on a NetBSD 
> dom0 with a xen 3.3.2 kernel?  All the various Linux-related Xen 
> documentation I can find seems to assume you're setting up a new linux 
> dom0, and using some script to create the install on another Linux machine.

back when prgmr.com used a NetBSD dom0, we would create a tarball of
an altroot install on a linux box[1]  then copy the tarball to the
netbsd box and untar it on the loopback mounted file we were 
going to use for the DomU.   Actually, this is still what we do
(though we put the net-install kernel/initrd for several distros
in the boot menu if customers would prefer.)  

As others have stated, it's often best to just run the netinstall
kernel/initrd within the guest, but often the tarball method is easier
to setup than figuring out each distro's network-install stuff, and it's
certainly faster than going through the install by hand.  





[1]http://book.xen.prgmr.com/mediawiki/index.php/Chapter_3:_Provisioning_domUs#Using_the_Package_Management_System_with_an_Alternate_Root