[xen-tools] Re: feature requests

[elw at stderr.org]

>> 1) it'd be great if xen-create-image checked to make sure that dom0 has
>>    the loopback module loaded.  i'm embarassed to say that i didn't,
>>    and didn't realize it until things blew up ;)
>
>  I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not, since the images might
> be built on a host which isn't running Xen.  Still I'll think about
> it some more later.

Point taken, I think.  Maybe just emit a warning instead?  That will be 
enough to clue in most of the folks who'd be interested in Xen, anyway.


>  (Of course this could only apply if not using LVM partitions.)


Right.  I'm using image files.  [We took a stab at using LVM, but it turns 
out that there are some difficulties to backing up LVM filesystems with 
Amanda - dev-mapper gives the filesystem devices funked-up permissions, 
and they're VERY difficult to change in a sticky way.]

I gotta have backups, at least of the volumes where the image files 
live... so we went back to XFS for now.


>> 2) when building a sarge guest, we need some more device nodes.
>>    /dev/sda2 didn't get created in my fresh guest, so it couldn't swapon.
>>    `MAKEDEV sd` fixed it, of course, but doing it pseudo-automagically
>>    would be very nice.  it should be possible to parse this stuff out of
>>    the domU config file and take care of the common cases without hassling
>>    the user.
>
>  Strange I've not see this before.  Usually I just use "makedev generic" 
> and everything is created as expected.

I got a root filesystem, but no swap device.  Are you using LVM for swap 
space, too?

oh ho ho - here's a piece of it.  I never ran makedev generic - I guess I 
assumed that the image creation scripts were going to do that for me.  So 
when i got /dev/sda1 mounted as root, but no swap device, I presumed a 
bug.  I got *some* devices without running makedev generic, just not 
enough of them.  :)


--e