Xen Source – Xen Community Version

Unlike XenServer, which provides an integrated UI to configure the virtual machines, Xen Source® does not provide one. Therefore, the third step of switching from HVM to PVM must be done manually by changing configuration files.

This section provides examples of basic Xen configuration files that you can use to initialize Protegrity Appliance on Xen Source hypervisor.

For more information about Xen Source, refer to Protegrity Support, Xen Source documentation, and forums.

HVM Configuration

The following commands are used to manually configure the appliance for full virtualization.

import os, re
arch_libdir = 'lib'
arch = os.uname()[4]
if os.uname()[0] == 'Linux' and re.search('64', arch):
arch_libdir = 'lib64'
kernel = "/usr/lib/xen/boot/hvmloader"
builder='hvm'
boot="cda"
memory = 1024
name = "ESA"
vif = [ 'type=ioemu, bridge=xenbr0' ]
disk = [ 'file:/etc/xen/ESA.img,hda,w', 'file:/media/ESA.iso,hdc:cdrom,r' ]
device_model = '/usr/' + arch_libdir + '/xen/bin/qemu-dm'
sdl=0
opengl=0
vnc=1
vncunused=0
vncpasswd=''
stdvga=0
serial='pty'

PVM Configuration

The following commands are used to manually configure the appliance for paravirtualization.

kernel = "/usr/lib/xen/boot/pv-grub-x86_64.tgz"
extra = "(hd0,0)/boot/grub/menu.lst"
memory = 1024
name = "ESA"
vif = [ 'bridge=xenbr0' ]
disk = [ 'file:/etc/xen/ESA.img,xvda,w']
#vfb = [ 'vnc=1' ]# Enable this for graphical GRUB splash-screen

Modify the configuration file names, locations, and resources to suit your own environment and requirements.

Virtual Appliance

Create a new (minimum) virtual appliance on XEN Source after creating the configuration files as /etc/xen/ESA.hvm.cfg and /etc/xen/ESA.pv.cfg.

# xm info
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/etc/xen/ESA.img bs=1 count=1 seek=15G
# xm create –c /etc/xen/ESA.hvm.cfg
… Install machine… configure PVM …
# xm shutdown ESA
# xm create –c /etc/xen/ESA.pv.cfg

Paravirtualization FAQ and Troubleshooting

This section lists some Paravirtualization Frequently Asked Questions and Answers.

• ←Previous
• Next→