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Re: [Xen-users] Making system templates

On 09/06/09 12:04, Fajar A. Nugraha wrote:
On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 7:08 AM, Jeff Williams<jeffw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
So to confirm, rather than making /dev/xenvg/domudisk and doing:

disk = ['phy:/dev/xenvg/domudisk,xvda,w']

and partitioning /dev/xenvg/domudisk in the guest, you'd make (for example):

/dev/xenvg/domudisk-root
/dev/xenvg/domudisk-home
/dev/xenvg/domudisk-swap

and configure it like:

disk = [
  'phy:/dev/xenvg/domudisk-root,xvda1,w',
  'phy:/dev/xenvg/domudisk-home,xvda2,w',
  'phy:/dev/xenvg/domudisk-swap,xvda3,w'
]

Is that right?

That's what I do with templates-based installation.

The idea had crossed my mind, but all the tools seemed to
want to do it the other way.

For some tools (like virt-manager), yes. Other tools (like eucalyptus)
seems to use tar.gz. images.
Personally I don't use provisioning tools, but rather doing it all
manually (lvcreate, mkfs, tar xfvz, etc.).

Interesting. So what I have so far is:

- no-one seems to use lvm snap shot for provisioning as I guess it is too inflexible.
- no-one seems to use dd either
- no-one seems to use virt-clone either
- most people seem to do one of:

1) Create the disks and file systems and do a file level copy of the template (tar seems to be preferred over cpio) 2) Use some sort of bootstrap procedure to do a network install of the OS, followed optionally by a start -up script which installs and configures required packages.

Also interesting was that a few people are doing "partitioning" at the Dom0/LVM level with a separate LV per partition and passing those partitions through to the DomU rather than passing an LV as a disk and partitioning at the DomU level.

Thanks for all the input. At this point I'll be using templates with a file level copy and a separate LV per partition to make resize easier.

Regards,
Jeff

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