Koozali.org: home of the SME Server
Obsolete Releases => SME 7.x Contribs => Topic started by: arne on February 02, 2008, 01:42:55 AM
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I have installed SME 7.3 as host and guest operating system with Vmware and this works smoothly and without a bug.
To get some more reeferance an the subject I like to test out SME 7.3 running as a guest operating system under Xen as well.
Installed Centos 5.1/64 with Xen and used this guide: http://www.howtoforge.com/centos_5.0_xen
Installed a virtual Centos 5.1/32 under Xen and this worked ok.
Then tried to install SME 7.3 but the virtuall installer just came up with the message that the proper files were not found:
From the guest operation dialogue:
[root@pc-00241 ~]# virt-install
What is the name of your virtual machine? sme73
How much RAM should be allocated (in megabytes)? 256
What would you like to use as the disk (path)? /vm/vm2.img
How large would you like the disk (/vm/vm2.img) to be (in gigabytes)? 8
Would you like to enable graphics support? (yes or no) no
What is the install location? http://smemirror.fullnet.co.uk/releases/7.3/smeos/i386/
Starting install...
ERROR: Could not find an installable distribution the install location
Reason for selecting a internetbased installation was because this method worked with the Centos 5.1 guest installation.
( http://wftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/centos/5.1/os/i386/ )
My first thought and believe about this was that this actually were just the more general question: "How to install SME 7.3 over the net ?"
I then remembered that I think that the Linux kernel has to be customized for Xen virtualization.
I did then try to install SME 8.0 beta as it is based on Centos 5. Did not work.
Also tried to mount tne SME 7.3 CD to install from CD. Did not work.
Does anybody has some ideas if it is possible to install SME 7.3 under Xen ?
Could it eventuelly be possible to ad on an extra kernel or replace the old one (using the 8.0 beta ?) ?
Anybody who knows ?
By the way - everything that should work does work with Vmware server already, but it would be just interesting to see if the Xen as an open source product could be used as well ..
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http://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3663
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Thanks for this information. It looks like the person posting the bug is using a slightly different installation method than me. My installation does not even start up so that I am able to get an incorrect password.
I think I red in the Xen dokumentation that a standard Linux kernel will hot run as guest under Xen, so that it will be requred to use a kernel that is compiled espesially for Xen.
I wonder if this could be the common reason ?
From the Xen FAQ:
1.3. Which OSes run on Xen?
To achieve such high performance, Xen requires that OSes are ported to run on it. See the Current status of OS ports
http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/OSCompatibility
Will a standard Linux 2.6 kernel run ??
Is this actually a guide how to install the SME 7.3 under Xen and will it also include to replace the kernel with a Xen modified kernel ? (I have to admit I do not understand the guide completely.)
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Xen/MoveNative2DomU
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Conclusion about SME server 7.3/8.0 and Xen:
The SME 7.3 and SME 8.0 does not have "kernel compability" with the Xen runtime enviroment, so the SME servers can not work under Xen without a kernel modification.
Centos 5.1/64 is rather easy to set up as a Xen host and as a guest. The way I think it works is that the Centos 5.1/64 distro is equiped with more than one kernel, and under installation it is detected if it is a question of a Xen "runtime" or virtualization envirinent, and if it is the Xen variant of the kernel is used.
32 bit varient of the Centos 5.1 has been tested as guest, so it is not a requirement that the guest is 64 bit system, but I belive that if the SME 8.0 shall support a Xen installation, it will be required to keep the multiple kernel arrangement of the Centos 5.1
(At least I hope I understand these things in some way.)
As it will be to difficult and time consuming to replace the SME server kernel with a Xen prepared variant, I think I park this project here.
Vmware server fits by the way much bether with the product philosophy of the SME server as a easy to manage and yet powerful system. Xen gives a more "low lewel but effective" style of all its arrangements.
It would be intersiting if there is some other persons with some other conclusions.
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The SME 7.3 and SME 8.0 does not have "kernel compability" with the Xen runtime enviroment, so the SME servers can not work under Xen without a kernel modification.
[...]
As it will be to difficult and time consuming to replace the SME server kernel with a Xen prepared variant, I think I park this project here.
SME and xen are completely compatible. That is how I do all my testing. There are also a few other testers that are using xen installs of sme.
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Interesting.
But how do you do that installation ?
At the Centos 5.1 there is a number of kernels where some are marked -xen. When you are running xen at host the -xen variant of the host is running. This I think I noticed. I also belived there was a customized kernel at the guest, but I might be wrong about that .. ??!!
When I did a centos 5.1/64 installation and just selected "support for virtualization", the Xen demon, etc went into place. I then installed a Centos 5.1 as a guest and this wa not a problem. I used this guide:
http://www.howtoforge.com/centos_5.0_xen
When I tried to install the SME 7.3 and 8.0 I anly got the message that there was no innstallable files.
What would be the proper method for installing SME server under Xen when (if) the Xen demon and enviroment is there ?
I used this tool at Centos 5.1: "virt-install"
Could it be that the SME server is just not compatible with that tool and that there is required some other "manual method" ? Or possible something else ?
I am rather curious to give it a new try .. :-)
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Hi Arne,
maybe you can go the route via HVM-Domain for installation, if you have and HVM-capable hardware, and then later convert the domain to a paravirtuallized one
These are my instructions when I installed SME on a Debian Dom0
http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=38802.0;topicseen
Cheers
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tec -> Thanks a lot for this info.
If the small and simple procedure dont work I will try the bigger one.
slords had this intersting post in this tread:
If you have a RHEL5/CentOS5 box you can also do this which is a whole lot easier and quicker:
virt-install -n sme -r 512 -f /dev/main/sme \
-b xenbr0 --nographics -l \
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/smeserver/releases/7/smeos/i386 \
-x 'ksdevice=link ip=dhcp selinux=0 text'
Where /dev/main/sme is the empty lvm you have created to house your sme installation. You can also change the url to point to a closer mirror or to loop mounted copy of the iso.
This will install sme and create the /etc/xen/sme file correctly for you. You won't need to connect with vnc and won't have to tweak anything afterwords either. I'm not sure if other distros contain the virt-install but I do know that el5/cos5 do.
This lead to exactely the same error messages as I had:
Starting install...
ERROR: Could not find an installable distribution the install location
No one were able to solve this problem in the last tread.
I wonder if this sentece in the post of slords could have the key:
Where /dev/main/sme is the empty lvm you have created to house your sme installation.
What does this mean, and how do I make an empty lvm ?
Does it have anything to to with this:
http://www.gweep.net/~sfoskett/linux/lvmlinux.html ?
http://www.howtoforge.org/linux_lvm
slords -> do you have a few words ?
Possibly something here ?:
http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=8041
http://www.nikhef.nl/pub/projects/grid/gridwiki/index.php/Xen_on_CentOS_5_-_Notes
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What does this mean, and how do I make an empty lvm ?
Maybe I can help.
You can install a Xen paravirtualized Domain in two ways. One would be in a file container similiar to the VMware image files. The other and recomended one from a performance standpoint is to install it inside an LVM-Volume.
If you want to install it in an LVM Volume. You need an free partition on your harddrive which is partioned for LVM and has usually a name lets name "mygreatlvmvolume"
You can make it with the pvcreate commando.
On my machine a pvscan give the following output:
PV /dev/sda5 VG mygreatlvmvolume lvm2 [372,52 GB / 45,29 GB free]
Then you can create within this partition a specific volume
lvcreate -n sme_lv -L 60GB mygreatlvmvolume <<<this creates an logical volume where your sme installation will go inside.
mkfs -t ext3 /dev/mygreatlvmvolume/sme_lv
after this you type lvscan in your command prompt and this will show something like this:
/dev/mygreatlvmvolume/sme_lv' [60,00 GB] inherit
Cheers
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Thanks.
When done as a Centos 5.1 more or less automated installation of a "gest" it produces those image files simular to vmware. At least it is a simple way for testing.
I will do a new installation of the host system and this time I wil let there be some unpartioned space there so I can try this other method.
Arne.
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Arne take a look at the Benchmark comparison from Filebased to LVMbased Virtual Machines
http://www.nospam-domain.de/wiki/bnmsp/xenserver
I suppose that with this Info the reinstallation from you Host will go easier :-)
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tec -> Where do this name come from: mygreatlvmvolume
(Do I in some way install it ?)
I did not have success by installing SME at Centos 5.1 at all. Yesterday it worked with Centos 5.1 as "guest".
It would be nice to have a some kind of howto for the SME server, to do it as simple as possible, and the guide on the net will not work for the SME server.
I will try to study your method a bit further on.
By the way, the installation and use of Vmserver is close to nothing compared with Xen. With the SME 7.3 and Vmware you can speak with someone at ten o'clock and agree that you will have everything set up and running at twelve o'clock. This does not seem to be the case for the Xen alternative.
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Found something here:
http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/rhel5/rhel5_xen_virtualization/index.html
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Hi Arne,
you need somewhere on your Disk empty space. Then start fdsik and make in this empty space a new partition, lets assume it is /dev/sdb. And then when asked which type it should be you will select "Linux LVM" the Hexcode for this 8e. Then you need to:
pvcreate /dev/sdb1 This now your "Physical Volume". After this you have a partition which is reserved for LVM-Volumes. Now you will need to create an an Volumegroup on this Physical Volume.
vgcreate mygreatlvmvolume /dev/sdb1
After this you are now able to create Logical-Volumes inside your Volumegroup with
lvcreate -n sme_lv -L 60GB mygreatlvmvolume and now format this volume with
mkfs -t ext3 /dev/mygreatlvmvolume/sme_lv
If this still doesn't work, try my HowTo. There you need to do all the steps by Handy and you will do but this should give you a working SME-inside Xen installation.
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Thanks for the information :smile:
I have now parked the Xen virtualization project a litle bit to do the "SME on 64 bit host via vmware server" project. Reason is that I believed there was some kind of incompability between the SME repositories on the net and the Xen server, at lest when it comes to the Centos related installation procedures (??!!). I will use some time later on to look into this problem.
By the way here is some reading for later use:
http://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/5.1/Virtualization_Guide/
http://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/5.1/Virtual_Server_Administration/
And I also found something in the Centos/RedHat documentation (Virtualization guide chapter 4):
Note
If your system CPU architecture is ia64, you need to manually install the xen-ia64-guest-firmware package to run a fully virtualized guest. This package is provided in the Supplementary CD and is not installed by default.
On my newest hardware I tried to install from a sme.iso and this way the installation started, but was then hanging after the virtual machine was created. This match with the Centos note, I think.
This note could be the explanation if it works on Debian but not on a 64 bit Centos. I did not use this extra Centos package.
********
OK still made an atempt and run into the problem that the required rpm package is not publically available (???)
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2007-0702.html (Or is it ?)
Also found on the net:
"If fully virtualized (HVM) domains are required, the IA-64 guest firmware package will also need to be installed from the Supplementary CD-ROM: Supplementary/xen-ia64-guest-firmware-1.0.0-8.ia64.rpm"
Supplementary CD ROM ??
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The problem about installing SME 7.3 on Xen/Centos5.1/64 apeared to be related to some buggy Centos 5.1 packets.
The SME 7.3 runns like a dream under Xen and on a Centos 64 platform, and it looks like it performs even bether than when running on Vmware same platform.
There is absolutely no errors to the SME 7.3 that prevent it to run as a VM under Xen. (.. As far as I have been able to test it out until now.)
Slords is right in his post above - A virtual SME 7.3 on Xen works wery well.
... And the easy guide that did work:
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/rhel-centos-xen-virtualization-installation-howto.html
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SME and xen are completely compatible. That is how I do all my testing. There are also a few other testers that are using xen installs of sme.
Would you mind giving us a howto on how to install Xen on SME 7.3 & then install SME 8.0 or any other OS on it?
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Would you mind giving us a howto on how to install Xen on SME 7.3 & then install SME 8.0 or any other OS on it?
I think we need to be a bit clearer, you will have to setup a Xen host (dom0 I believe) by installing a Linux OS of your choice, I would go for CentOS. Once the Xen environment is configured you can install SME Server into this environment as a guest OS, you can not use SME Server to host a Xen environment and install other OS-es in it, the Xen kernel on the CD is a Xen kernel, which knows how to behave in a Xen environment, it does know how to provide such an environment AFAIK
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not according to slords' post. I understand that he's got Xen running on top of SME, which he then uses for testing purposes.
Even if the default SME kernel doesn't have Xen support, one should be able to use a standard CentOS 4.6 kernel with Xen support, since SME doesn't do mods to the kernel, but use what the upstram provider supplies
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There is a xen kernel for SME 7.3. I use the free citrix xencenter express edition, which has a Windows GUI very much like vmware's server. It runs on IVT or AMD-V hardware, and allows vm's to run automatically at boot, so its a true VM server. It allows you to import & export the vm's, and clone them.
It uses templates to load the OS, or you can load with a CD using the 'Other Install Media' template. The OS templates load using urls that contain the install tree, and automatically selects the correct (xen) kernel, etc when it loads.
For SME 7.3, I selected the Centos 4.6 template, and then pasted the following site into the Install Url in the Location section:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/smeserver/releases/7/smeos/i386/
I gave it 512 megs ram, and 8 gigs of storage.
Loading an OS over the web is a bit slower, but when its finished you'll have a xen-aware VM. You will still have to install xs-tools when its done, but thats simple...
I backed up my stand-alone SME box and restored it to the VM, and I'm just running down the tweaks I've done that arent working (that werent transferred in the backup). But it runs very much faster than it used to.
My next project is to transfer my trixbox server to VM, and then I can shut off two servers...
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not according to slords' post. I understand that he's got Xen running on top of SME, which he then uses for testing purposes.
Nope you have understood that wrong, slords wrote this:
SME and xen are completely compatible. That is how I do all my testing. There are also a few other testers that are using xen installs of sme.
As he states some users, including slords self, is using XEN installs of SME Server, not XEN installs on SME Server.
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I've tried to follow the suggestions on this post without success.
What I've done:
CentOS 5.3 with Xen up and running, with 2 DomU CentOS 5.3 paravirtualized guests (one for scripts testing and the other one for a trouble ticket system), enough RAM for more VMs.
Downloaded smeserver-7.4-i386.iso on /img.
Loopback mounted on /mnt
# mount /img/smeserver-7.4-i386.iso /mnt -o loop
Create a VM with virt-manager (GUI) or virt-install
# virt-install --paravirt --name hermes --ram 1024 --file /dev/vg0/hermes --nographics --location /mnt
hermes in an empty LVM volume.
If I replace "/mnt" with http://distro/.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/smeserver/releases/7/iso/i386 to do a network install, I invariably receive the same message: "Could not find an installable distribution".
I know this is not a bug as SME has been stated to work perfectly with Xen.
Would someone please point me in the right direction?
Regards,
Miguel Angel Araujo
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is that a typo, or are you really trying to open:
http://distro/.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/smeserver/releases/7/iso/i386
Paste that into a browser and see what you get.
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It's a typo.
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Downloaded smeserver-7.4-i386.iso on /img.
Loopback mounted on /mnt
# mount /img/smeserver-7.4-i386.iso /mnt -o loop
AFAIK you do not need to mount the iso, have a look at the command switches of virt-install and you will see the -f/--filename option:
-f DISKFILE, --file=DISKFILE
File to use as the disk image
I know this is not a bug as SME has been stated to work perfectly with Xen.
Although installation might need some tweaks AFAIK.
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From man virt-install, the -f/--filename option is "Path to the file, disk partition, or logical volume to use as the backing store for the guest’s virtual disk."
Do you mean the --location option?
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From man virt-install, the -f/--filename option is "Path to the file, disk partition, or logical volume to use as the backing store for the guest’s virtual disk."
Oops... my mistake.
Do you mean the --location option?
No, from the same man page (I had to take a second look as I have not installed from ISO a long time, as I have a local mirror that I can use):
-l LOCATION, --location=LOCATION
Installation source for guest virtual machine kernel+initrd pair.
This is required for paravirtualized guests. Fully virtualized
guests must use either "--location" to specify a kernel+initrd, or
the "--cdrom" parameter to specify an ISO/CDROM image. The
"LOCATION" can take one of the following forms:
DIRECTORY
Path to a local directory containing an installable
distribution image
nfs:host:/path
An NFS server location containing an installable distribution
image
http://host/path
An HTTP server location containing an installable distribution
image
ftp://host/path
An FTP server location containing an installable distribution
image
According to this it should be the -c/--cdrom switch:
-c CDROM, --cdrom=CDROM
File to use a virtual CD-ROM device for fully virtualized guests.
It can be path to an ISO image, or to a CDROM device. It can also
be a URL from which to fetch/access a minimal boot ISO image. The
URLs take the same format as described for the "--location"
argument. If this parameter is omitted then the "--location"
argument must be given to specify a location for the kernel and
initrd, or the "--pxe" argument used to install from the network.
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The --cdrom switch is for "fully virtualized guests", my server's CPU doesn't have hardware assisted virtualization support, so I have to use paravirtualization.