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Jun 03 2012
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Fedora 17 XVA ready to import into XenServer

Xen LogoAfter I wrote a post about my kickstart update for Fedora 17, I asked if anyone wanted a XVA export of a working Fedora 17 instance. Without further ado, here’s the bzip2-compressed XVA file ready to be decompressed and imported into XenServer:

The kickstart used to generate the XVA can be found on GitHub. To import this virtual machine export, use XenCenter or ssh to your XenServer instance and run:

xe vm-import filename=F17.xva

The VM should try to get its network configuration via DHCP and you can log in as root with the password qwerty. It should go without saying, but you ought to change that password at your earliest opportunity. (It’s #20 on the New York Times’ list of simplest passwords.)

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May 30 2012
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Fedora 17 released, XenServer kickstarts updated

Fedora 17 Beefy Miracle kickstarts
Fedora 17 was released yesterday and you can download it now!

In addition, I made some edits to my kickstarts repository on GitHub to match up with the final release of Fedora 17. The kickstart took less than ten minutes to complete even with a remote repository configured for RPM packages.

Fedora & XenServer users: Would posting an actual XVA file for download make it easier for you to get started? I’ve considered doing this from time to time since you can easily import the VM directly into XenServer as a template via the command line or XenCenter. Let me know if you’d find this useful and I should be able to get it done this week.

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May 25 2012
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Fedora 17 is a go!

Fedora Infinity LogoI was glad to see the Fedora 17 Final is declared GOLD! announcement on the Fedora devel-announce list. If all goes well, we should see the formal release on May 29.

As some of you might have noticed, I’m a fan of Xen. If you want to get Fedora 17 rolling in XenServer right now, just try my minimal kickstart. I’ll try to get a XVA/OVF-formatted image online in the next few days so you can hit the ground running if you’re in a hurry.

Check out the new Fedora 17 features and improvements and prepare yourself for the Beefy Miracle.

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Mar 12 2012
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Installing XenServer 6.0.2 on an AOpen MP57

AOpen MP57Getting XenServer installed on some unusual platforms takes a bit of work and the AOpen MP57 is a challenging platform for a XenServer 6.0.2 installation.

My MP57 box came with the i57QMx-vP motherboard. If yours came with something else, this post may or may not work for you.

You’ll need the XenServer 6 installation ISO burned to a CD to get started. Boot the CD in your MP57 and wait for the initial boot screen to appear. Type safe at the prompt and press enter. Go through the normal installation steps and reboot.

After the reboot, you’ll notice that there’s no video output for dom0. Hop on another nearby computer and ssh to your XenServer installation using the root user and the password that you set during the installation process. Open up /boot/extlinux.conf in your favorite text editor and make sure the label xe section looks like this:

label xe
  # XenServer
  kernel mboot.c32
  append /boot/xen.gz mem=1024G dom0_max_vcpus=4 dom0_mem=752M lowmem_emergency_pool=1M crashkernel=64M@32M acpi=off console=vga --- /boot/vmlinuz-2.6-xen root=LABEL=root-aouozuoo ro xencons=hvc console=hvc0 console=tty0 vga=785 --- /boot/initrd-2.6-xen.img

The console=vga adjustment ensures that the dom0 console is piped to the vga output and acpi=off fixes the lockup that will occur when the vga output is sent to your display. I also removed splash and quiet from the kernel line so that I could see all of the boot messages in detail.

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Feb 11 2012
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Installing Fedora 16 in XenServer

Getting Fedora 16 working in XenServer isn’t the easiest thing to do, but I’ve put together a repository on GitHub that should help. The repository contains a kickstart file along with some brief instructions to help with the installation. If you’re ready to get started right now, just clone the repository:

git clone git://github.com/rackerhacker/kickstarts.git kickstarts

There are some big issues with Fedora 16 which cause problems for installations within XenServer:

  • the installer sets up a console on something other than hvc0
  • anaconda won’t start without being in serial mode
  • anaconda tries to use GPT partitions by default
  • grub2 is now standard, but it causes problems for older XenServer versions

My kickstart works around the grub2 problem by throwing down an old-style grub configuration file and creating the proper symlinks. This config will still be updated when you upgrade kernels (at least in Fedora 16). It also sets up a very simple partitioning schema with one root and one swap partition. A DOS partition table is used in lieu of a GPT partition table.

When you start the installation, be sure to review the README.md in the git repository. It has some special instructions for boot options to meet the requirements of Fedora 16 and the kickstart file.

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