Xen support

[ed despard]

Hi,
	I am the student who is working on xen support this summer.  I dont  
think i can accept any code contributions from anyone, but i deffinitly  
need to know what people want to see in the way of support, and testing  
along the way.  Im currently working on a set of xen packages, and as  
soon as i have something ready to be tested, ill let the list know.
On Jul 4, 2005, at 1:31 AM, Mircea MITU wrote:

> On Mon, 2005-07-04 at 05:18 +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:
>>>
>>> I can help the KernelTeam (or the XenTeam?) testing Xen bits.
>>
>> I think start sharing your experience and requirement would be a good
>> idea.
>>
>
> My experience with Xen is limited to
> http://cosi.clarkson.edu/knowledge/workshops/sp05/installingxen/xen- 
> tutorial.html and Xen under Fedora (Development 3 and Core 4).
>

I was one of the authors of that workshop, so the general outline  
followed there will be what i will be implimenting in the installer.

> I was able to run a dom0 domain and to install FC (using an image of an
> installed system) and Hoary/Sarge (using debootstrap) under several  
> domU
> domains.
>
> The pitfall was that I wasn't able to use Lirc/remote control or NVidia
> 3D acceleration under Xen domains (0 or U)
>

Xen has issues with agp, im not sure what the status is in the newest  
release of getting 3d acceleration to work, but you should inquire on  
the xen-devel list at lists.xensource.com

>
>> What exactly do you expect from xen packages and why?
>
> 1. linux-image-dom0, linux-image-domU Ubuntu packages using the same
> config as the official linux-image packages (when possible)

My packages have 2.4 and 2.6 dom0 and domU images
they dont currently have the same config as the stock ubuntu installer,  
but ill work on doing that.
I also have packages planned for patches to the stock kernel source,  
and would like to hack somthing like make-kpkg so that it is easier for  
users to compile their own xen kernels.  My kernel packages also  
contain scripts along the same lines of update-grub, to keep grub  
entries up to date with the current hypervisor/dom0 kernels installed.   
I still need to come up with a config file format for passing this  
information around (similar to /etc/kernel.conf) so that i can stop  
using debconf as a registry...

> 2. xen tools Ubuntu packages
> (to not "abuse" third-party binaries anymore ;)

I currently have a single tools package, that includes all the tools  
and libraries, I am inexperienced in the needs of packageing libraries  
properly, all i know is that lintian complains about just having them  
in the tools package. Pointers in the right direction here would be  
appreciated.

> On my wishlist:
> - xen configuration wizard (debconf and/or gui)

look at cosi.clarkson.edu/xen  not only did we write a workshop, but  
also a gui configuration tool and a hacked togeather debian installer  
to install xen.
> - debian/ubuntu-installer with xenU support to install a new Ubuntu
> system into a xen domU

my plan for installer integration is to have a new stage that is run  
right after base-installer to do the xen installation.  This way you  
can still have grub entries created and kernels installed to boot into  
non-xen configurations.  For xenophilia, i hacked base-installer to  
install a xen kernel instead of a stock kernel, but that just gets  
messy.  I would like input on how and what questions should be asked  
during installation.  I was planning on asking for dom0 memory  
allocation and dom0 kernel(choosen from a list of 2.4/2.6 dom0  
kernels).  The  root device for dom0 would be the same root device the  
target system was installed on.  But should there be a system of  
creating other ubuntu guest domains from within the installer? I would  
prefer to see that task left to a seperate tool that could be run on  
first boot, or any other time the user wants.  I would prefer to get  
some input from the installer team here on how they would like all of  
this integreated with other stages, especialy the grub-installer stage  
in regards to my update-grub-xen script.
	Also in the vein of installer questions, is there documentation on how  
udebs/debhelper integrate? and what extra information do i need to  
include in the package control file?

Edward Despard

> - amd64 support (I know that this is planned for Xen 3.0)
>
> In the end, I expect to be able to replace VMWare, qemu/bochs and
> vservers in day-by-day operations with Xen in the following roles:
> - testing (apps/platforms/configurations)
> - isolation of several network services
>
> Also, domain migration over xen nodes will be a great advantage also ;)
>
>
>
>
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