Table of Contents

VM Server Installation

John T. Rine

Objective

The objective of this project is to successfully install the Xen VM Server.

Materials/Reading/Prerequisites

This is a base project, there are no prerequisites.

To accomplish this project you will need:

ItemDescriptionQty
computerVM Server Computer1
student shelf KVM setupThe location for this installation is largely established and fixed1

Background

After successfully completing the virtual machine server installation and virtual machine creation projects for HP0, I realized that I knew nothing about virtual machines, or virtual machine servers, so I searched the Internet for information about virtual machines and virtual machine servers. Regarding virtual machines and virtual machine servers, here is what I found: A virtual machine is an encapsulated piece of software which behaves just like a physical machine, a computer. It has its own virtual hardware, for example, a network interface card, a CPU, and RAM. It executes its own applications on its own operating system or systems. According to vmware.com, virtual machines have four key characteristics that make them attractive to a user:

  1. Compatibility: (vmware) Virtual machines are compatible with all standard x86 processors
  2. Isolation: All virtual machines are isolated from each other as if they were physically separate machines
  3. Encapsulation: Virtual machines encapsulate an entire computing environment
  4. Hardware independence: Virtual machines run independently of underlying hardware

The backbone of the vm server is called the “hypervisor”. It is a thin software layer which is inserted between the server's hardware and the operating system. “A hypervisor, also called a virtual machine manager, is software that allows multiple operating systems to share a single hardware host. Each operating system appears to have the host's processor, memory, and other resources.” Xen's hypervisor is software that runs on top of the computer hardware with nothing in between. The hypervisor replaces the operating system so that computer hardware can execute multiple guest operating systems at the same time. xen supports x86, x86-64, Itanium, Power PC, and ARM processors and supports Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, Windows, and other common operating systems as guests.

Procedure

  1. Make sure the VM Server KVM is set to the VM Server machine you are using for the install, make sure the KVM channel is set to 00 (mine VM Server machine was connected to KVM button 8).
  2. Turn on the VM Server computer on which you will install the VM server, Make sure the monitor at the monitor and keyboard station near the VM Server “farm” is turned on.
  3. As it boots, press F2 on the keyboard to bypass the “System Setup” screen and go directly to the cmos setup.
  4. Arrow down to the “Disk Configuration” item and press enter. A popup screen will appear.
  5. On the popup screen, arrow down to “Primary Master Drive” and press enter. A popup screen appears.
  6. On the popup screen, arrow to (if required) “Drive Type”; using the right or left arrow keys, set to the type “Auto”. Press enter to exit the second popup; press escape to exit the first popup.
  7. On the BIOS setup main screen, arrow down to “Boot Sequence” and press enter. A popup screen appears.
  8. On the popup screen, using the +/- arrow keys, move the “Integrated NIC” item to the second item on the list with the hard drive at the top of the list. Make sure it is enabled (square root symbol directly to the left of this item). If it isn't enabled, use the space bar to enable it. Press enter to exit the popup window.
  9. On the BIOS setup main screen, arrow down to the “Integrated Devices (LegacySelect Options)” and press enter. A popup screen appears.
  10. On the popup, arrow down to “Network Interface Controller” item. Using the right or left arrow keys, set the network interface controller to “On w/PXE”.
  11. Press escape to exit the bios setup screen. Popup appears.
  12. On the popup screen, arrow to (if required) the “Save Changes and Exit” item. Press enter to exit the BIOS setup screen.
  13. Computer reboots.
  14. Next, the Lair Network Boot Menu loads.
  15. Select “Debian/i386 Netboot” and press enter.
  16. Arrow to “Install Squeeze/testing [text]” if required and press enter.
  17. At this point, the installation begins (defaults were selected throughout MOST but not all of the installation).
  18. The “Select a language” screen is displayed. The default is “English”, press enter to select this item.
  19. The “Select a location” screen is displayed. The default is “United States”, press enter this item.
  20. The “Select a keyboard layout” screen is displayed. The default is “American English”, press enter this item.
  21. The “Configure the network” screen is displayed. On this screen, the Host name: “dhcp-175” is entered automatically. press enter to continue.
  22. The “Configure the network” screen is displayed. On this screen, the Domain name: “offbyone.lan” is entered automatically. Press enter to continue.
  23. The “Choose a mirror of the Debian archive” screen is displayed. The default is “United States”. Arrow up to “Enter information manually” item and press enter.
  24. The “Choose a mirror of the Debian archive” screen is displayed. The Debian mirror host name: “mirror” is entered automatically. Press enter to continue.
  25. The “Choose a mirror of the Debian archive” screen is displayed. The Debian archive directory: “/debian/” is entered automatically. Press enter to continue.
  26. The “Choose a mirror of the Debian archive” screen is displayed. HTTP proxy information is blank by default. Press enter to continue.
  27. In the first installation od Debian Squeeze, the installation continued from here, however during the second installation, the installation failed because a file could not be insalled from the network archive. This was because there was a newer version that was avalable. When the failure occured, the installer is prompted to either retry or change the mirror. During the second installation the mirror was changed to thr RIT mirror.
  28. Next, the “Set up users and passwords” screen is displayed. The Root password I entered was “bob”.
  29. The “Set up users and passwords” screen is displayed. The installer is prompted to re-enter the password. I entered entered “bob”.
  30. The “Set up users and passwords” screen is displayed. The installer is prompted to enter “The full name for the new user:” I entered “a”.
  31. The “Set up users and passwords” screen is displayed. The installer is prompted to enter the username for the account. I entered “a”.
  32. The “Set up users and passwords” screen is displayed. The installer is prompted to enter a password for the new user. I entered “a”.
  33. Next, the “Configure the clock” screen is displayed. For Select your time zone: “Eastern” is the default. Press enter to continue.
  34. The “Partition disk” screen is displayed. The default is “Guided-use entire disk”, press enter to continue.
  35. The “Partition disk” screen is displayed. The disk to partition: SCSI 1 (0,0,0) (sda)-xxx.xxGB ATA Maxtor. has been entered automatically. Press enter to continue.
  36. The “Partition disk” screen is displayed. Partitioning scheme: “All files in one partition (recommended for new users)” is the default. Press enter to continue.
  37. The “Partition disk” screen is displayed. The default “Finish partitioning and write changes to disk” is displayed. Press enter to continue.
  38. Partitioning message-“The following partitions are going to be formatted: Partition #1 of SCSI1 (0,0,0) sda as ext3; Partition #5 of SCSI1 (0,0,0) sda as swap.”
  39. Popularity contest message “Configuring popularity contest: Participate in the package usage survey?”. Select <no>.
  40. The “Software selection” screen is displayed. The default is “Graphical desktop environment”. Deselect this selection using the spacebar. Using the space bar, select the ssh server. If any other items are selected, deselect them using the space bar. Press enter to continue.
  41. Configuring grub message: “Configuring grub-pc: Install grub boot loader to master boot record”, <yes>.
  42. Installation complete <continue>.
  43. Finishing the installation..
  44. Computer reboots automatically.
  45. Next, at the prompt as root vmserver04 login: root password bob
  46. Now delete user a's account. At the command prompt, enter “userdel -r a” (a in this case is the name of the user)
  47. Now change directory to /etc/apt and list the contents of the directory. At the command prompt, enter “ls”.
  48. rename sources.list because we are going to download a new one into this disrectory. At the command prompt, enter “mv sources.list oldsources.list”.
  49. Now download the replacement sources.list. At the command prompt, enter “wget http://web.offbyone.lan/files/students/sources.list”
  50. Next, open sources.list with a text editor and replace all references to “lenny” to “squeeze” (squeeze was release last Sunday). On the command prompt, enter “vi sources.list”. In vi enter “:%s/lenny/squeeze/g”. Next to save the changes and quit vi, Enter “:wq”.
  51. on the command line enter “aptitude update”.
  52. Next on the command line, enter “aptitude upgrade”.
  53. On the commmand line enter “aptitude search xen”.
  54. Next, on the command line, enter “aptitude install xen-linux-system xen-tools”
  55. Now on a remote computer, open a terminal and at the prompt enter “ssh root@vmserver04.student.lab”. When propmted, enter the password “bob”.
  56. Next, edit the file /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp. on the command line enter “nano /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp”. In nano, search for “network-script”. Once this is located, uncomment “(network-script network bridge)”. Make sure you have no leading spaces on this line once you uncomment as Python doesn't like leading spaces. While in nano, make sure that the line “(vif-script vif-bridge)” is uncommented. Save the file and exit nano.
  57. Next, edit the file /etc/xen/scripts/vif-common.sh. On the command line, enter “nano /etc/xen/scripts/vif-common.sh”. Locate the function “frob_iptable()”. Add “–physdev-is-bridge” to the two “iptables” lines so that they become “iptables “$c” FORWARD -m physdev –physdev-is-bridged –physdev-in “$vif” “$@” -j ACCEPT \ 2>/dev/null &&” and “iptables “$c” FORWARD -m state –state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -m physdev \ –physdev-is-bridged –physdev-out “$vif” -j ACCEPT 2>/dev/null”. Once these modifications have been made save and exit nano.
  58. Now edit the file /etc/modules. on the command line enter “nano /etc/modules”. Find the line “loop” and change it to “loop max_loop=255”. Save the file and exit nano.
  59. Edit the file /etc/xen-tools/xen-tool.conf. On the command line, enter “nano /etc/xen-tools/xen-tools/xen-tool.conf”. Delete the entire contents of this file using cntl-k. Next, paste the all of the text from the text field (dowiki code field) labelled “xen-tools…Config file, /etc/xen-tools/xen-tools.conf follows:” located on http://lab46.corning-cc.edu/haas/system/sokraits_halfadder.offbyone.lan. Now change the line “arch = amd64” to “arch = i386”. Once these modifications have been made save and exit nano.
  60. Next, edit the file /etc/default/grub. On the command line, enter “nano /etc/default/grub”. Verify that the line is set as follows, “GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true”. If it isn't, edit it so it so that it is. Once these modifications have been made save and exit nano.
  61. From the instructions on http://lab46.corning-cc.edu/haas/system/sokraits_halfadder.offbyone.lan, on the command line, perform the following command “mv /etc/grub.d/10_linux /etc/grub.d/50_linux”
  62. Now run update-grub2. On the command line, enter “update-grub2”.
  63. Now edit the file /etc/default/xendomains. On the command line, enter “nano /etc/default/xendomains”. In this file, make the following modification: change XENDOMAINS_SAVE from “XENDOMAINS_SAVE=/var/lib/xen/save” to “XENDOMAINS_SAVE=”“” (change XENDOMAINS_SAVE to an empty string). Also verify that XENDOMAINS_RESTORE is set to false: “XENDOMAINS_RESTORE=false”. Once these modifications have been made save and exit nano.
  64. On the command line enter the command to reboot: “ reboot” (look across the room at the monitor at the VM server setup station to observe the reboot process).
  65. Once the reboot has taken place, on the command line, enter “xm list”.

The following was displayed during my install:

    root@vmserver04:~# xm list    
    Name                        ID    Mem     VCPUs      State         Time(s)
    Domain-0                    0     1883    1          2_____        18.8

References