From multi-boot to multi-guest?

Xen is mostly of interest to me so I can do development and
testing
on multiple operating systems without rebooting. I already
have
several /boot and root partitions for several OS setup on my
machine.
I can also boot the Fedora Core 6 xen kernel as dom0, but my
experiments
with the redhat virt-manager tool seem to indicate the only
way it can
create new guests is if I want to install more copies of
fedora.

What I'd really like to do is just turn the various /boot
and root
partitions I currently have into guests under Xen. Are there
any
instructions a person starting with absolutely no knowledge
of Xen
can follow to do this?

Things I can guess:

I'll have to change my fstab file in each OS to not mount
other
partitions owned by other OSes.

I'll have to give them all unique host names and IP
addresses.

Things I have no idea how to imagine:

How do I setup the network for each guest?

Is creating the guest just a matter of building a proper
config file
to point to my existing boot and root partitions and pass to
xm?
If so, what the devil goes in the config file (which
file names are specified relative to the filesystems mounted
on
dom0 and which ones are relative to the domU mountpoints)?
Or
do I need to copy some info out of the existing partitions
so
it lives somewhere on dom0?

How do I make sure the kernels in the existing boot
partitions will
support paravirtualization? (I have no fancy new Pacifica or
Vanderpool instructions on my machine).

What have I missed that will drop me into virtualization
hell
when I try this stuff? .

Thanks for any pointers to get me started! (Speaking of
getting
started - are there any web pages on Xen that are somewhere
in between the Sunday Supplement and the Phd level -
everything
I find seems to have hype with no content or content that
only
makes sense if I was in at the beginning of the long
conversation
I missed .

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On Wed, Dec 06, 2006 at 07:26:45PM -0500, Tom Horsley wrote:
> Xen is mostly of interest to me so I can do development
and testing
> on multiple operating systems without rebooting. I
already have
> several /boot and root partitions for several OS setup
on my machine.
> I can also boot the Fedora Core 6 xen kernel as dom0,
but my experiments
> with the redhat virt-manager tool seem to indicate the
only way it can
> create new guests is if I want to install more copies
of fedora.
> 
> What I'd really like to do is just turn the various
/boot and root
> partitions I currently have into guests under Xen. Are
there any
> instructions a person starting with absolutely no
knowledge of Xen
> can follow to do this?
> 

I haven't used virt-manager (yet) so I don't know if it
supports editing the
config file.. or using custom partitions/volumes/files
directly.

You need to edit the xen virtual machine (domU) config file,
and specify
your selected partitions for the domU. That way domU will
only see
the partitions you specified. 

Specify different partitions for each domU.

-- Pasi

> Things I can guess:
> 
> I'll have to change my fstab file in each OS to not
mount other
> partitions owned by other OSes.
> 
> I'll have to give them all unique host names and IP
addresses.
> 
> Things I have no idea how to imagine:
> 
> How do I setup the network for each guest?
> 
> Is creating the guest just a matter of building a
proper config file
> to point to my existing boot and root partitions and
pass to xm?
> If so, what the devil goes in the config file (which
> file names are specified relative to the filesystems
mounted on
> dom0 and which ones are relative to the domU
mountpoints)? Or
> do I need to copy some info out of the existing
partitions so
> it lives somewhere on dom0?
> 
> How do I make sure the kernels in the existing boot
partitions will
> support paravirtualization? (I have no fancy new
Pacifica or
> Vanderpool instructions on my machine).
> 
> What have I missed that will drop me into
virtualization hell
> when I try this stuff? .
> 
> Thanks for any pointers to get me started! (Speaking of
getting
> started - are there any web pages on Xen that are
somewhere
> in between the Sunday Supplement and the Phd level -
everything
> I find seems to have hype with no content or content
that only
> makes sense if I was in at the beginning of the long
conversation
> I missed .
> 

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