by garfield001

Installing Xen-4.1.2 (dom0) on Ubuntu 10.04

(This article is based on Xen-Ubuntu and XenParavirtOPs)

Installation of Xen-4.1.2 (dom0) with paravirtual guest support on Ubuntu 10.04 involves two major tasks

  1. Build and install xen
  2. Compile a DOM0 kernel

Steps for task #1

  1. Install Ubuntu 10.04 with ext4 file system
  2. Download Xen-4.1.2 from http://bits.xensource.com/oss-xen/release/4.1.2/xen-4.1.2.tar.gz
  3. Install necessary libraries and utilities: 
    $ sudo apt-get install bcc bin86 gawk bridge-utils iproute libcurl3 libcurl4-openssl-dev bzip2 module-init-tools transfig tgif texinfo texlive-latex-base texlive-latex-recommended texlive-fonts-extra texlive-fonts-recommended pciutils-dev mercurial build-essential make gcc libc6-dev zlib1g-dev python python-dev python-twisted libncurses5-dev patch libvncserver-dev libsdl-dev libjpeg62-dev iasl libbz2-dev e2fslibs-dev git-core uuid-dev ocaml ocaml-findlib libx11-dev libc6-xen
  4. If you are running a 64 bit kernel, then install some additional packages 
    $ sudo apt-get install gcc-multilib xz-utils
  5. Extract xen-4.1.2.tar.gz 
    $ tar xzf xen-4.1.2.tar.gz
  6. Building Xen 
    $ cd xen-4.1.2/
$ make xen
$ make tools
$ make dev-docs  <======= optional step, ignore warnings
$ make stubdom
$ sudo make install-xen
$ sudo make install-tools PYTHON_PREFIX_ARG=
$ sudo make install-docs <============= optional step
$ sudo make install-stubdom

    Cheers! You’ve completed the task 1.

Steps for task #2

  1. First make a directory for the Xen-kernel source at your desired location. In this article, I’ll use ‘/usr/src’. 
    $ cd /usr/src
$ mkdir linux-2.6-xen
  2. You can download the dom0 kernel from your favorite location. As per suggestions, I’m going to checkout the latest xen dom0 linux kernel from a git repository. Check available branches at  http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/jeremy/xen.git;a=heads. You might encounter a lot of blogs, documentations suggesting to checkout ‘xen/stable-2.6.32.x’; but unfortunately that branch no longer exists in the above mentioned git repository. So I’m going to checkout ‘xen/next-2.6.32’ branch. 
    $ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jeremy/xen.git linux-2.6-xen
$ cd linux-2.6-xen
$ git remote show origin     <===== just to verify the branch names
$ git checkout -b xen/next-2.6.32 origin/xen/next-2.6.32
  3. To make your life easier, copy your current Ubuntu config file to the current directory and then configure your dom0 kernel 
    $ cp /boot/config-2.6.32.XX-generic .config
$ make menuconfig
    1. Enable the following options in the mentioned order. This will enable all the XEN related options. Xen dom0 support depends on ACPI support. Make sure you enable ACPI (CONFIG_ACPI=y) support or you won’t see Dom0 options at all. 
      --> Processor type and features
        Deselect: Support for extended (non-PC) x86 platforms
        ---> Processor family
             Select either: Pentium-MMX or Pentium-Pro
        Select: High Memory Support (64GB)
  --> Paravirtualized guest support
        Select: Xen guest support
        Select: Enable Xen privileged domain support
    2. Now consult  XenSource (Configuring the kernel) for further configuration. Here is a list of required configuration options 
      CONFIG_X86_PAE=y
CONFIG_HIGHMEM(64G)
CONFIG_PARAVIRT=y
CONFIG_XEN=y
CONFIG_PARAVIRT_GUEST=y
CONFIG_PARAVIRT_SPINLOCKS=y
CONFIG_HVC_DRIVER=y
CONFIG_HVC_XEN=y
CONFIG_XEN_FBDEV_FRONTEND=y
CONFIG_XEN_BLKDEV_FRONTEND=y
CONFIG_XEN_NETDEV_FRONTEND=y
CONFIG_XEN_PCIDEV_FRONTEND=y
CONFIG_INPUT_XEN_KBDDEV_FRONTEND=y
CONFIG_XEN_FBDEV_FRONTEND=y
CONFIG_XEN_SAVE_RESTORE=y
CONFIG_XEN_XENBUS_FRONTEND=y <=====(will be enabled automatically)
    3. Some more options for dom0 kernel 
      CONFIG_X86_IO_APIC=y
CONFIG_ACPI=y
CONFIG_ACPI_PROCFS=y (optional)
CONFIG_XEN_DOM0=y
CONFIG_XEN_DOM0_PCI=y  <=====(will be enabled automatically)
CONFIG_PCI_XEN=y   <=====(will be enabled automatically)
CONFIG_XEN_DEV_EVTCHN=y
CONFIG_XENFS=y
CONFIG_XEN_COMPAT_XENFS=y
CONFIG_XEN_SYS_HYPERVISOR=y
CONFIG_XEN_GNTDEV=y
CONFIG_XEN_BACKEND=y
CONFIG_XEN_NETDEV_BACKEND=m
CONFIG_XEN_BLKDEV_BACKEND=m
CONFIG_XEN_PCIDEV_BACKEND=m
CONFIG_XEN_PRIVILEGED_GUEST=y  <=====(will be enabled automatically)
CONFIG_XEN_BALLOON=y
CONFIG_XEN_SCRUB_PAGES=y
  4. Now build the kernel 
    $ sudo make
$ sudo make modules_install install
  5. Now build initramfs image for the newly build kernel (e.g., 2.6.32.56) 
    $ sudo update-initramfs -c -k 2.6.32.56
  6.  Add Xend and Xendomains to auto-start 
    $ sudo update-rc.d xencommons defaults 19 18
$ sudo update-rc.d xend defaults 20 21
$ sudo update-rc.d xendomains defaults 21 20
$ sudo update-rc.d xen-watchdog defaults 22 23
  7. Add the following modules to ‘/etc/modules’ file so that the kernel loads them at startup 
    $ sudo vim /etc/modules

    and add the following lines

    #Added for xen
xen-evtchn
xen-gntdev
xen-netback
xen-blkback
xenfs
blktap
  8. Now update grub after placing the following entry to the ‘/etc/grub.d/40_custom’ file: 
    menuentry "Xen - Linux 2.6.32.56" {
     insmod ext2
     set root='(hd0,X)'
     multiboot /boot/xen.gz dummy=dummy
     module /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32.56 dummy=dummy root=UUID=XXXX_YYY ro dom0_mem=512M nomodeset
     module /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32.56
}

    Replace ‘X’ with your partition number and ‘XXXX_YYY’ with UUID listed in your current ubuntu menuentry at ‘/boot/grub/grub.cfg’ file.

  9. Now type: 
    $ sudo update-grub
  10. Open ‘/etc/xen/xend-config.sxp’ and replace 
    #(xend-unix-server no)

    with

    (xend-unix-server yes)
  11. Now reboot and boot into xen-kernel
  12. To test xen-dom0, type 
    $ cat /proc/xen/capabilities
control_d

    If you don’t have anything under ‘/proc/xen’ directory, then add the following line to the ‘/etc/fstab’ file and then reboot

    none /proc/xen xenfs defaults 0 0
  13. Now try another command 
    $ sudo xm list

    and you will see the only ‘Domain-0’ is running. If not, then consult troubleshooting XenSource.

  14. Now type 
    $ brctl show

    If you see the bridge without any interface attached to it, then perform the following steps

    1. Open ‘/etc/xen/xend-config.sxp’ and replace 
      (network-script network-bridge)

      with

      (network-script 'network-bridge netdev=eth0')
    2. Now make sure your ‘/etc/network/interfaces’ looks like the following if you have a DHCP connection 
      auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

      or like as follows if you are a static IP (replace with your own IPv4  addressses)

      auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd
netmask aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd
gateway aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd

      and make sure your ‘/etc/hosts’ file looks as follows

      127.0.0.1       localhost
127.0.1.1       yourhostname

      and just reboot your machine and try ‘brctl show’ again. It should display the bridge name ‘eth0’ and the attached interface ‘peth0’.

Congrats! You are done with your xen dom0 kernel setup.. Now it’s time to chill out! 🙂

Coming soon
Installing multiple domU running guest OS on a Xen hypervisor.

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