[Xen-devel] Setting up a more complex system scenario

["Gregory Newby" <newby@xxxxxxxx>]

In Re: [Xen-devel] Network issues with SuSE firewall,
On Sat, Nov 08, 2003 at 03:13:57AM +0000, Ian Pratt wrote:

... lots of helpful stuff omitted ...

> Let's get a domain running off ramdisk/CD then we'll walk you
> through the next bit...
> 
> Ian

Thanks, Ian.  I'm grateful that running off of CD now works.  I'm
ready to move towards a workable/usable system, and will describe the
outcome I'm thinking of.  From what I've read in README.CD, this is
clearly possible but there are questions left unanswered.

Questions: 

1) For IP addresses, do they need to be sequential?  I have 9
sequential ones, but the first (DOM0) is not.  I can renumber if
needed, but it looks like Xen just have separate startup scripts with
hard-coded IP addresses for each non-DOM0 domain.

2) Can my current /usr (and the rest of the distro) co-exist with Xen,
or will I be unable to boot a "regular" Linux after all this?


Setup:

- I want to run 9+1 domains on one system (9 virtual plus the 0th
domain).  They'll be IP-based.

- I'd like them to share as much of the core OS as is reasonable: /,
/boot, /etc, /usr, /usr/local etc.  This can be by NFS, or (better)
mounting ro.  This is for convenience in administration.

- They must have one or more shared data directories (/globus and
/shared), again via NFS or ro.  (r+w is not needed).  This is
for getting applications running.

- They'll each have their own /data partition, r+w, which will be a
physically separate drive.  /dev/sdk1, /dev/sdl1, /dev/sdm1, etc.

- I'm not sure how to handle /home.  It would be nice for a user to
get his *same* home directory r+w on each system.  NFS r+w?

So, things I need to do are:

1) Get a correct /usr etc. on hard drive, so I can boot virtual
domains that will run off of hard drive.  (Currently, they're
running in RAMfs via CD.)

2) Give each virtual domain a different /etc/fstab or other
configuration so that they mount the right drives ro and rw and NFS.

3) Code a xenctl startup script for each IP-based domain to insure
each one is booted properly.  For example, "grid-11" should always go
to the same IP address, not a different one if, for example, one of
the other domains fails to start or is accidentally started twice.

For illustration purposes, grid-11.arsc.edu = 137.229.71.11.
The main system, peabody.arsc.edu = 137.229.71.6

As you see, the main parts I don't quite see yet are the interaction
between the system filesystems (/usr etc.), and the mechanics of
startup for a hard-drive based system.

I promise to write up all these steps, for others to use, once I get
things running.  Thanks again for your help, this is truly going 
to be extremely useful software for my Grid applications development.
  -- Greg


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