[xen-tools-discuss] Re: Debian guest on Fedora 8 Dom0

[Henning Sprang]

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 2:10 PM, Mike Brotzman <mbrotzman.jhu at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was wondering what the process is for creating a Debian guest on a
>  Fedora Dom0.  I have been able to run xen-tools and create and Debian
>  image, but because of the Fedora Dom0 I lack the paravirtualized linux
>  images.

What do you mean with "paravirtualized linux image" - the kernel?
Surely, Fedora does contain a paravirtual Xen Linux Kernel!

Apart from that, you did the right thing, as in all my experiments,
it's hard if not impossible to run other guests with the Fedora Xen
Linux Kernels - it worked much better starting the domU's with their
native Xen Linux Kernel, after copying these over to the dom0
filesystem.

> I installed the xen images packages and copied them over
>  along with the modules from another Debian install, but I was still
>  unable to make it work.

Your description is a bit ambigous  - do you mean you copied over the
Xen _hypervisor_ or the linux kernel with Xen patches?

Please tell us _exactly_ which files you copied, and what _exactly_
happened - e.g., a more detailed description of "I was unable to make
it work" - what happened, what exactly did you see in log files,
console output, etc.

>  I am not the biggest Linux guru here so I am sure I screwed something
>  up along the way.  If anyone knows the proper procedure to install on
>  a non-Debian Dom0 can you post it here?

The wiki would be a better place for such an howto, if written.

> That would be more productive
>  than trying to trouble shoot what I have been trying to do.

Actually, I did that a good time ago, and I remember that it was quite
straightforward and I don't know of anything more to describe than the
things you seem to have done already - so I guess it's really some
detail you're missing, that should be possible to be solved with the
usual Xen debugging workflows.

You need debootstrap on the Fedora system to create the system
initially, and to start the Debian guest, you need the kernel and a
matching ramdisk(containing important modules) of the debian xen
Kernel on the host, and inside the guest you need matching kernel
modules.
Surely, you need to put the right kernel and ramdisk lines into your
xen-tools config files and config templates - or, for testing, add
them manually into the generated xen config files.

Just we cannot tell you what exactly went wrong without proper error
messages that you see.

Henning

-- 
Henning Sprang
http://www.sprang.de | http://lazyb0y.blogspot.com/