Creation From a Cloudmin System Image

Once you have at least one system setup to host Citrix Xen instances and registered with Cloudmin, and have downloaded at least one Citrix Xen system image, you can create your first virtual system. The steps to do this are :

1. On the left menu, open the Create System link and click on Create Citrix Xen VM. This will open the Create New System page.
2. In the System hostname field, enter a short hostname for the new instance. This does not need to include a domain name - it will be appended automatically based on the Xen host selected.
3. In the System description field enter a short description, like Foo Corp's webserver.
4. From the Initial system image menu, select the OS image to install. We provide images for CentOS and Debian.
5. In the Root login mode section, select Using password and enter the root password to set for the new system into the adjacent field.
6. In the Webmin installation mode section you do not have to select anything if you have chosen to use an image with Virtualmin, as Webmin will be installed automatically.
7. Because the selected image may include old packages, you should set the Update Virtualmin packages? field to Yes, so that Cloudmin will install all available updates after instance creation.
8. From the Citrix Xen hosting system menu, select the host on which this Xen system should be created. It is generally a good idea to spread your instances across hosts to avoid putting too much load on a single system.
9. If the new Xen system with run Virtualmin, you should increase the Memory allocated to instance field to 512 MB, or even more if the host system has enough RAM.
10. By default, Citrix Xen VMs created from images with Virtualmin Pro have 2 GB filesystems, while those without it get 1 GB. In both cases, there is only about 500 MB free. To increase the size of the instance's filesystem, use the Disk space allocated to instance field.
11. If the image contains Virtualmin Pro, you will need to select a license for it using the License for Virtualmin from image field. See the Virtualmin Licenses page for more details on aquiring and registering licenses, so that they can be easily allocated at system creation time.
12. Finally, click the Create System button to start the creation process.

Because Xen instance creation involves the copying and uncompression of large filesystem images, the creation process may take up to 5 minutes. However, Cloudmin will display each step in the process as it is run, including copying the image file, un-compressing it, modifying the Xen filesystem to set the root password and IP address, and finally starting up the instance.

Assuming that everything works, the new virtual system will be added to the left menu. You will be able to use Cloudmin to rebooting, shut it down, start it up, or create Virtualmin domains on it, just as you could for any real system. If you no longer need this Xen VM2, it can be completely removed with the Delete System link on the left menu.

Creation From a Xen Template

Citrix Xen also allows a virtual system to be created empty, and setup to boot the installer for some Linux distribution or other operating system. This allows you to create a new VM into which you install Debian, CentOS or even Windows. The steps to do this are :

1. On the left menu, open the Create System link and click on Create Citrix Xen VM. This will open the Create New System page.
2. In the System hostname field, enter a short hostname for the new instance. This does not need to include a domain name - it will be appended automatically based on the Xen host selected.
3. In the System description field enter a short description, like New CentOS install.
4. From the Initial system image menu, select From Citrix Xen template.
5. In the Root login mode section, select Using password and enter the root password to set for the new system into the adjacent field.
6. From the Citrix Xen hosting system menu, select the host on which this Xen system should be created. It is generally a good idea to spread your instances across hosts to avoid putting too much load on a single system.
7. If the OS being installed needs more than the default of 128 MB of rAM, increase the Memory allocated to instance field.
8. From the Citrix Xen template menu select a template for the OS you plan to install, such as Debian Lenny 5.0.
9. In the Repository URL for template field enter the base URL appropriate for the selected Linux distribution. For Debian 5.0 this would be http://ftp.debian.org/ , while for CentOS 5 it would be like http://mirror.centos.org/centos-5/5.4/os/i386/ .
10. Click the Create System button to start the creation process.
11. Creation will be relatively quick, as only the installer for the new VM gets set up. Cloudmin will report the status as Ping failed, which is expected as networking has not been enabled yet.
12. Open the System State menu category and then click on Graphical Console. This will allow you to complete the install process as though you were accessing a physical system at the console. Be sure to enter the same root password, hostname and IP address that you chose above, or else Cloudmin will be unable to manage the new system.

    When it comes to disk partitioning, we recommend creating a single partition that does not use LVM or RAID - otherwise Cloudmin will be unable to access files in the VM when it is shut down. If you must use swap, put the swap partition at the start of the disk so that the partition with the filesystem on it can be expanded later.

13. Once installation is complete and the virtual system has been rebooted, click Refresh Status on the left menu - if all went well the status should show up as SSH.