Setting Up Linux Open Source Xen Virtualization

While many different Linux distributions include packages for Xen, this page focuses on CentOS 5 and Redhat Enterprise 5, which we have found to be well supported and easy to setup. To make full use of Xen, you should be running one of these distributions on a machine with plenty of RAM (2 GB or more), enough disk space for all the filesystems of instances you want to host, and a CPU that supports either Intel's VTI extensions or AMD Pacifica.

This documentation relates to the open source version of Xen only - the commercial variant supported by Citrix is treated separately by Cloudmin, and is covered on the Citrix Xen page.

Cloudmin GPL

The Cloudmin GPL install script should install a Xen-capable kernel and all other required packages on the system it is run on, so none of the steps here are needed. All you need to do is reboot the system after running the installer, and then verify that the kernel includes Xen support by running uname -r .

CentOS 5

Once you have a freshly installed system running CentOS 5, the steps to set it up for Xen hosting are :

Login as root via SSH or at the console.
Install the Xen kernel with the command
```
yum install kernel-xen kernel-xen-devel
```

Once the new kernel has been installed, an entry for it will be automatically added to /boot/grub/menu.lst like :

title CentOS (2.6.18-8.1.4.el5xen)
        root (hd0,2)
        kernel /xen.gz-2.6.18-8.1.4.el5
        module /vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.1.4.el5xen ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
        module /initrd-2.6.18-8.1.4.el5xen.img

Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and change the default= line to use the newly added Xen kernel, which will typically be the first one in the file (numbered 0).
Install the Xen commands package with the command
```
yum install xen parted
```
Disable the virbr0 Qemu network interface with the command
```
cat /dev/null >/etc/libvirt/qemu/networks/default.xml
```
Make sure SElinux is disabled by editing /etc/sysconfig/selinux and changing the SELINUX line to SELINUX=disabled .
Reboot the system with the reboot command. If you are at the console, you should be able to see Xen-related messages during the kernel boot process.
Verify that Xen is working with the command :
```
xm list
```
If you see a line starting with Domain-0, then all is good.
Create the /xen directory, which Cloudmin uses by default for Xen system images, with the command
```
mkdir /xen
```

And that's it! You can now register this system as a Xen host in Cloudmin.

Redhat Enterprise 5

If your RHEL 5 system has the yum command installed and working, you can follow the exact same steps above. If not, use Redhat's up2date command instead :

Login as root via SSH or at the console.
Make sure all packages are up to date and your Redhat Enterprise subscription is working by running the command :
```
up2date -u
```
Install the Xen kernel with the command
```
up2date kernel-xen kernel-xen-devel
```

Once the new kernel has been installed, an entry for it will be automatically added to /boot/grub/menu.lst like :

title Redhat Enterprise (2.6.18-8.1.4.el5xen)
        root (hd0,2)
        kernel /xen.gz-2.6.18-8.1.4.el5
        module /vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.1.4.el5xen ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
        module /initrd-2.6.18-8.1.4.el5xen.img

Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and change the default= line to use the newly added Xen kernel, which will typically be the first one in the file (numbered 0).
Install the Xen commands package with the command
```
up2date xen
```
Disable the virbr0 Qemu network interface with the command
```
cat /dev/null >/etc/libvirt/qemu/networks/default.xml
```
Make sure SElinux is disabled by editing /etc/sysconfig/selinux and changing the SELINUX line to SELINUX=disabled .
Reboot the system with the reboot command. If you are at the console, you should be able to see Xen-related messages during the kernel boot process.
Verify that Xen is working with the command :
```
xm list
```
If you see a line starting with Domain-0, then all is good.
Create the /xen directory, which Cloudmin uses by default for Xen system images, with the command
```
mkdir /xen
```

Ubuntu Linux 8.04

Login as root via SSH or at the console.
Update your package database with the command :
```
apt-get update
```

Install the Xen capable kernel and support packages with the command :

apt-get install ubuntu-xen-server libc6-xen xen-tools xen-utils-3.2 xen-hypervisor-3.2 parted

Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and change the default= line to use the newly added Xen kernel, which will typically be the first one in the file (numbered 0).
Reboot the system with the reboot command. If you are at the console, you should be able to see Xen-related messages during the kernel boot process.
Verify that Xen is working with the command :
```
xm list
```
If you see a line starting with Domain-0, then all is good.
Create the /xen directory, which Cloudmin uses by default for Xen system images, with the command
```
mkdir /xen
```

Debian Linux 4.0 / 5.0

Login as root via SSH or at the console.
Update your package database with the command :
```
apt-get update
```
Install the Xen capable kernel and support packages with the command :
```
apt-get install xen-linux-system libc6-xen xen-tools xen-utils-3.2-1 xen-hypervisor-3.2-1-i386 parted
```
On a 64-bit system, replace the xen-hypervisor-3.2-1-i386 package above with xen-hypervisor-3.2-1-amd64.
Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and change the default= line to use the newly added Xen kernel, which will typically be the first one in the file (numbered 0).
Reboot the system with the reboot command. If you are at the console, you should be able to see Xen-related messages during the kernel boot process.
Verify that Xen is working with the command :
```
xm list
```
If you see a line starting with Domain-0, then all is good.
Create the /xen directory, which Cloudmin uses by default for Xen system images, with the command
```
mkdir /xen
```

Debian Linux6.0

Login as root via SSH or at the console.
Update your package database with the command :
```
apt-get update
```
Install the Xen capable kernel and support packages with the command :
```
apt-get install xen-linux-system parted
```
Activate the Xen-capable kernel as documented on http://wiki.debian.org/Xen . The quickest command to do this is mv -i /etc/grub.d/10_linux /etc/grub.d/21_linux ; upgrade-grub
Enable the Xen network bridge by editing /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp and un-commenting the line (network-script network-bridge)
Reboot the system with the reboot command. If you are at the console, you should be able to see Xen-related messages during the kernel boot process.
Verify that Xen is working with the command :
```
xm list
```
If you see a line starting with Domain-0, then all is good.
Create the /xen directory, which Cloudmin uses by default for Xen system images, with the command
```
mkdir /xen
```