| openSUSE Documentation Chapter 10. Virtual Machine Server / 10.6. Setting up the Virtual Machine Server | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | 10.5. Virtual Machine Server | 10.7. Creating Virtual Machines |  | |
| openSUSE Documentation Chapter 10. Virtual Machine Server / 10.6. Setting up the Virtual Machine Server | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10.5. Virtual Machine Server | 10.7. Creating Virtual Machines | | |
This section guides you through the steps to set up and run a VM Server.
Software packages can be installed during the installation or
on a computer already running openSUSE. All required packages are
installed automatically when starting the YaST Xen installation
module if they are not already installed. Namely, these are:
xen,
xen-libs,
xen-tools,
xen-tools-ioemu, and
kernel-xen.
Begin the installation.
On the screen, click > .
Select the check box next to the selection for .
Follow the prompts to complete the installation.
After completing the installation, proceed to Section 10.6.2, “Verifying That the GRUB Boot Loader Boots the VM Server”.
From the Start menu, launch YaST.
Click > .
Select the check box next to the selection for .
Click and complete the procedures to install the packages.
After installing the packages, proceed to Section 10.6.2, “Verifying That the GRUB Boot Loader Boots the VM Server”.
When the Xen software packages are installed, the GRUB boot loader is
automatically updated to present the VM Server as a boot option. The
GRUB boot loader configuration file is usually saved to
/boot/grub/menu.lst.
You might want to compare your GRUB boot loader configuration file with the sample below to confirm that it was updated to correctly boot VM Server. The first example shows a typical GRUB boot loader file updated to load the Xen software. The second file shows a GRUB boot loader file that loads a PAE-enabled kernel, which allows 32-bit computers to access memory over 4 GB.
title XEN
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/xen.gz hypervisor_parameters
module /boot/vmlinuz-xen kernel_parameters
module /boot/initrd-xen
title XEN
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/xen-pae.gz hypervisor_parameters
module /boot/vmlinuz-xenpae kernel_parameters
module /boot/initrd-xenpae
The title line specifies the name of the GRUB module. Do not change this line because YaST looks for the word to verify that packages are installed.
The root line specifies which partition holds the boot partition and /boot directory. Replace (hd0,5) with the correct partition. For example, if hda1 holds the /boot directory, the entry would be (hd0,0).
The kernel line specifies the directory and filename
of the hypervisor software. Replace
hypervisor_parameters with the parameters to
pass to the hypervisor. A common parameter is
dom0_mem=amount_of_memory,
which specifies how much memory to allocate to the VM Server. The amount
of memory is specified in KB, or you can specify the units, for example
128M. If the amount is not specified, the VM Server takes the maximum
possible memory for its operations. For more information about
hypervisor parameters, see the
XenSource Web
Site or the user documentation in
/usr/share/doc/packages/xen/html/user/index.html.
The first module line specifies the directory and
filename of the Linux kernel to load. Replace
kernel_parameters with the parameters
to pass to the kernel. These parameters are the same parameters as those
that can be passed to a standard Linux kernel on physical computer
hardware.
The second module line specifies the directory and filename of the RAM disk used to boot the VM Server.
When the computer boots, the GRUB boot loader should now present the VM Server as a boot option.
When the computer boots, select the option from the GRUB boot loader screen.
Log in to the computer as the root user.
Verify that the computer is running as a VM Server by entering xm list in a terminal window.
VM Server is running if the xm list command works.
The computer should now be running as a VM Server. Follow the steps in Section 10.7, “Creating Virtual Machines” to create virtual machines to run on the VM Server.
The following information can be helpful if the computer does not successfully boot as a VM Server.
Verify that the computer meets the minimum hardware requirements.
Enter the command rpm -qa | grep xen and make sure that you have installed the software packages listed in Section 10.6.1, “Installing Software Packages”.
Make sure the parameters in the GRUB boot loader configuration file are correct. Compare your file to the example given in Section “Sample GRUB Boot Loader File (Typical)”.
