-###############################
-__ __ ____ ___
-\ \/ /___ _ __ |___ \ / _ \
- \ // _ \ '_ \ __) || | | |
- / \ __/ | | | / __/ | |_| |
-/_/\_\___|_| |_| |_____(_)___/
+################################
+ __ __ _____ ___
+ \ \/ /___ _ __ |___ / / _ \
+ \ // _ \ '_ \ |_ \| | | |
+ / \ __/ | | | ___) | |_| |
+ /_/\_\___|_| |_| |____(_)___/
-###############################
+################################
-University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory
-3 November 2004
-
-http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/netos/xen/
+http://www.xensource.com/xen/about.html
What is Xen?
============
Xen is a Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) originally developed by the
Systems Research Group of the University of Cambridge Computer
-Laboratory, as part of the UK-EPSRC funded XenoServers project.
-Xen is freely-distributable Open Source software, released under the
-GNU GPL.
-
-The 2.0 release offers excellent performance, hardware support and
-enterprise-grade features such as live migration. Linux 2.6 and
-NetBSD 2.0 are already available for Xen, with more operating system
-ports on the way.
+Laboratory, as part of the UK-EPSRC funded XenoServers project. Xen
+is freely-distributable Open Source software, released under the GNU
+GPL. Since its initial public release, Xen has grown a large
+development community, spearheaded by XenSource Inc, a company created
+by the original Xen development team to build enterprise products
+around Xen.
+
+The 3.0 release offers excellent performance, hardware support and
+enterprise-grade features such as x86_32-PAE, x86_64, SMP gusets and
+live relocation of VMs. This install tree contains source for a Linux
+2.6 guest; ports to Linux 2.4, NetBSD, FreeBSD and Solaris will follow
+later (and are already available for previous Xen releases).
This file contains some quick-start instructions to install Xen on
your system. For full documentation, see the Xen User Manual. If this
# sh ./install.sh
- Amongst other things, this will install Xen and XenLinux kernel
- files in /boot, kernel modules and Python packages in /lib, and
- various control tools in standard 'bin' directories.
+ Among other things, this will install Xen and Xen-ready Linux
+ kernel files in /boot, kernel modules and Python packages in /lib,
+ and various control tools in standard 'bin' directories.
2. Configure your bootloader to boot Xen and an initial Linux virtual
- machine. Note that Xen currently only works with GRUB: less common
- alternatives such as LILO are *not* supported. You can most likely
- find your GRUB menu file at /boot/grub/menu.lst: edit this file to
- include an entry like the following:
-
- # title Xen 2.0 / XenLinux 2.6
- # kernel /boot/xen-2.0.gz dom0_mem=<mem-kb> console=vga
- # module /boot/vmlinuz-2.6-xen0 root=<root-dev> ro console=tty0
-
- For <mem-kb> you should specify the amount of memory, in kilobytes,
- to allocate for use by your initial XenLinux virtual machine. Note
- that Xen itself reserves about 32MB memory for internal use, which
- is not available for allocation to virtual machines.
- For <root-dev>, specify your usual root partition (e.g., /dev/hda1).
-
-3. Reboot your system and select the "Xen 2.0 / XenLinux 2.6" menu
- option. After booting Xen, XenLinux will start and your
- initialisation scripts should execute in the usual way.
+ machine. Note that Xen currently only works with GRUB and pxelinux
+ derived boot loaders: less common alternatives such as LILO are
+ *not* supported. You can most likely find your GRUB menu file at
+ /boot/grub/menu.lst: edit this file to include an entry like the
+ following:
+
+ title Xen 3.0 / XenLinux 2.6
+ kernel /boot/xen-3.0.gz console=vga
+ module /boot/vmlinuz-2.6-xen root=<root-dev> ro console=tty0
+ module /boot/initrd-2.6-xen.img
+
+ NB: Not all kernel configs need an initial ram disk (initrd), but
+ if you do specify one you need you'll need to use 'module' grub
+ directive rather than 'initrd'.
+
+ The linux command line takes all the usual options, such as
+ root=<root-dev> to specify your usual root partition (e.g.,
+ /dev/hda1).
+
+ The Xen command line takes a number of optional arguments described
+ in the manual. The most common is 'dom0_mem=xxxM' which sets the
+ amount of memory to allocate for use by your initial virtual
+ machine (known as domain 0). Note that Xen itself reserves about
+ 32MB memory for internal use, which is not available for allocation
+ to virtual machines.
+
+3. Reboot your system and select the "Xen 3.0 / XenLinux 2.6" menu
+ option. After booting Xen, Linux will start and your initialisation
+ scripts should execute in the usual way.
Quick-Start Guide - Source Release
==================================
* GCC (preferably v3.2.x or v3.3.x; older versions are unsupported)
* GNU Make
* GNU Binutils
- * Development install of libcurl (e.g., libcurl-dev)
* Development install of zlib (e.g., zlib-dev)
- * Development install of Python v2.2 or later (e.g., python-dev)
+ * Development install of Python v2.3 or later (e.g., python-dev)
+ * bridge-utils package (/sbin/brctl)
+ * iproute package (/sbin/ip)
+ * hotplug or udev
[NB. Unless noted otherwise, all the following steps should be
performed with root privileges.]
3. For the very first build, or if you want to destroy existing
.configs and build trees, perform the following steps:
- # make world
+ # make KERNELS=linux-2.6-xen world
# make install
- This will create the directories linux-2.6-xen0/ and
- linux-2.6-xenU/ after first cleaning everything. It will
- create and install into the dist/ directory which is the
- default install location. It will build the xen binary
- (xen.gz), the boot images for dom0 and an unprivileged
- guest kernel (vmlinuz-2.6.x-xen0 and vmlinuz-2.6.x-xenU
- respectively), the tools and the documentation.
+ It will create and install into the dist/ directory which is the
+ default install location. It will build the xen binary (xen.gz),
+ and a linux kernel and modules that can be used in both dom0 and an
+ unprivileged guest kernel (vmlinuz-2.6.x-xen), the tools and the
+ documentation.
+
+ If you don't specify KERNELS= on the make command line it will
+ default to building two kernels, vmlinuz-2.6.x-xen0 and
+ vmlinuz-2.6.x-xenU. These are smaller builds with just selected
+ modules, intended primarilly for developers that don't like to wait
+ for a -xen kernel to build. The -xenU kernel is particularly small
+ as it does not contain any physical device drivers, and hence is
+ only useful for guest domains.
+
+ If you want to build an x86_32 PAE capable xen and kernel to work
+ on machines with >= 4GB of memory, use XEN_TARGET_X86_PAE=y on the
+ make command line.
4. To rebuild an existing tree without modifying the config:
# make dist
5. To rebuild a kernel with a modified config:
- # cd linux-2.6-xen0 # or linux-2.6-xenU
+ # cd linux-2.6.12-xen # or linux-2.6.12-xen0 etc.
# make ARCH=xen menuconfig # or xconfig
# cd ..
# make dist
# make install
- You can copy your own config into linux-2.6-xen0 first.
Alternatively, you can also copy your config file to
dist/install/boot/config-$version-xen0/U. This is picked up
when a make dist is done. Include the ARCH=xen directive for
all make commands when building the kernels.
-6. To see a full list of targets and a brief description, type:
- # make help
+ NB: The need to specify ARCH=xen when building linux is likely to
+ disappear soon: the Xen patch is being rearranged to become just
+ another config option rather than a separate 'architecture'.
-7. Edit your grub.conf file as described above to have an
- appropriate entry for your new kernel.
+ Depending on your config, you may need to use 'mkinitrd' to create
+ an initial ram disk, just like a native system e.g.
+ # depmod 2.6.12.6-xen
+ # mkinitrd -v -f --with=aacraid --with=sd_mod --with=scsi_mod initrd-2.6.12.6-xen.img 2.6.12.6-xen
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