Re: [Xen-users] Stable VBD Types

[Nils Toedtmann <xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Am Montag, den 20.06.2005, 18:11 +0100 schrieb [GDPR REDACTED]:
[...] 
> Thanks. Although this is relevent to what I'm wanting to do, what I
> meant to say was using lvm snapshots as a way to reduce common files
> from repeating on disk. I quote the LVM-HowTo as it explains it a little
> better.
> 
> "It is also useful for creating volumes for use with Xen. You can create
> a disk image, then snapshot it and modify the snapshot for a particular
> domU instance. You can then create another snapshot of the original
> volume, and modify that one for a different domU instance. Since the
> only storage used by a snapshot is blocks that were changed on the
> origin or the snapshot, the majority of the volume is shared by the
> domU's."
[...]

We use the device-mapper for this. Works for us [tm]:

  dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/CoW1 bs=1M count=$CoW_SIZE
  dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/CoW2 bs=1M count=$CoW_SIZE

  losetup /dev/loop0 root_fs
  losetup /dev/loop1 /tmp/CoW1
  losetup /dev/loop2 /tmp/CoW2
  
  BLOCKSIZE=`blockdev --getsize /dev/loop0`

  echo "0 $BLOCKSIZE linear                           /dev/loop0   0" \
    | dmsetup create rootfs_base

  echo "0 $BLOCKSIZE snapshot /dev/mapper/rootfs_base /dev/loop1 p 8" \
    | dmsetup create rootfs1

  echo "0 $BLOCKSIZE snapshot /dev/mapper/rootfs_base /dev/loop2 p 8" \
    | dmsetup create rootfs2

You should now be able to use /dev/mapper/rootfs{1|2} read/write. Only
diff blocks to "root_fs" get written to "/tmp/CoW{1|2}". 

This way we boot >20 domUs off one root_fs (after shutdown we delete the
CoW files). I have now clue how to do that with LVM[2].

/nils.  

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