Chapter 2. Setting Up a Virtual Machine Host
	1.4. The Virtual Machine Host		2.2. Setting Up a 32-Bit Domain 0 on a 64-Bit Hypervisor

Setting Up a Virtual Machine Host

Contents

2.1. Best Practices and Suggestions
2.2. Setting Up a 32-Bit Domain 0 on a 64-Bit Hypervisor
2.3. Managing Domain 0 Memory
2.4. Starting the Virtual Machine Host

This section documents how to set up and use SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP2 as a virtual machine host.

In most cases, the hardware requirements for the Domain0 are the same as those for the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server operating system, but additional CPU, disk, memory, and network resources should be added to accommodate the resource demands of all planned VM Guest systems.

	Tip
Remember that VM Guest systems, just like physical machines, perform better when they run on faster processors and have access to more system memory.

The following table lists the minimum hardware requirements for running a typical virtualized environment. Additional requirements have to be added for the number and type of the respective guest systems.

Table 2.1. Hardware Requirements

System Component	Minimum Requirements
Computer	Computer with Pentium II or AMD K7 450 MHz processor
Memory	512 MB of RAM for the host
Free Disk Space	7 GB of available disk space for the host.
Optical Drive	DVD-ROM Drive
Hard Drive	20 GB
Network Board	Ethernet 100 Mbps
IP Address	One IP address on a subnet for the host. One IP address on a subnet for each VM Guest.

Xen virtualization technology is available in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server products based on code path 10 and later. Code path 10 products include Open Enterprise Server 2 Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, and openSUSE 10.x.

The virtual machine host requires a number of software packages and their dependencies to be installed. To install all necessary packages, run YaST Software Management, select the filter Patterns and choose Xen Virtual Machine Host Server for installation.

After the Xen software is installed, restart the computer.

Updates are available through your update channel. To be sure to have the latest updates installed, run YaST Online Update after the installation has finished.

Best Practices and Suggestions

When installing and configuring the SUSE Linux Enterprise operating system on the host, be aware of the following best practices and suggestions:

If the host should always run as Xen host, run YaST System+Boot Loader and activate the Xen boot entry as default boot section.
- In YaST, click System > Boot Loader.
- Change the default boot to the Xen label, then click Set as Default.
- Click Finish.
Disable powersave functionality on the host and all guest operating systems. On the host computer and other Linux computers, you can use the chkconfig powersaved off command.
Close Virtual Machine Manager if you are not actively using it and restart it when needed. Closing Virtual Machine Manager does not affect the state of virtual machines.
For best performance, only the applications and processes required for virtualization should be installed on the virtual machine host.
When using both, iSCSI and OCFS2 to host Xen images, the latency required for OCFS2 default timeouts in SP2 may not be met. To reconfigure this timeout, run /etc/init.d/o2cb configure or edit O2CB_HEARTBEAT_THRESHOLD in the system configuration.