XAPI on Ubuntu

Installing Xapi on Ubuntu Oneiric

This is Project Kronos. Follow theses instructions to get xapi, the XenAPI server daemon, installed on an Ubuntu Oneiric box, using the upstream Linux kernel. This will effectively allow you to turn an existing Ubuntu machine into an XCP host. Note that this is *very much* a work-in-progress. Some features will be broken, and there will be a bit of manual configuration required. We appreciate any testing you do for this project, but please don't consider this production ready yet! Please visit the Kronos Supported Features page for a list of XCP features that are known to work on Kronos.

Warnings

An important note: don't be tempted to install any kernel (via apt, for instance) which ends in "-virtual" during this process. Such kernels are intended to run as Guests (that is, "VMs"), and are not configured to be used as the Dom0 kernel. You will run into particular problems if you try this on a system which uses an Nvidia card, as the nvidia-current drivers do not currently seem to compile against these kernels, and you will therefore not be able to start X correctly. Given the standard Oneiric start up and splash screens, this isn't a particularly easy problem to fix, so avoid it in the first place!

Another important note: the instructions on this page assume that:

• you know what you are doing with Linux, and are able to repair any issues that might arise as a result of following (or mis-following...) the instructions;
• you are running as root. If you don't know what this entails, then see 1. above, and seek further help from the community before proceeding.

1. Install Ubuntu Oneiric

Kronos will work with either Ubuntu Oneiric Server or Desktop, with the default kernel. If you want to use local storage, you will have to reserve an unformatted partition on your hard disk for xapi. In a later step, you will use this partition to create a local storage repository.

2a. Set up the Kronos PPA ...or...

add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-xen-org/xcp

2b. ... Use a Kronos Debian repository

apt-get install curl echo "deb http://downloads.xen.org/XCP/debian/repo/debian unstable main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kronos.list echo "deb-src http://downloads.xen.org/XCP/debian/repo/debian unstable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kronos.list wget --quiet -O - http://downloads.xen.org/XCP/debian/xcp.gpg.key | apt-key add - 

3. Install xapi

This step installs XCP's xapi and all its dependencies, including the Xen hypervisor.

apt-get update
apt-get install xapi

Once you've installed these packages, you can just do an `apt-get update && apt-get upgrade` to keep up with the latest builds.

4. Post-install setup

a) Optional: Make xen the default grub entry.

sed -i 's/GRUB_DEFAULT=""/GRUB_DEFAULT="Xen 4.1-amd64"/' /etc/default/grub
update-grub

Note: given the default set up for Ubuntu's grub (in /etc/default/grub), you don't get to see the splashscreen with kernel boot options. If you do want to see the list of options, you may need to change some of the settings in this file.

b. Setup the network/interfaces file:

This is likely to be /etc/network interfaces - ensure that you don't remove any existing settings. Note that if you are running a DHCP server on this machine, then you may need to change the xenbr0 interface to a static or manual IP address, as DHCP may not come up in time to provide an address otherwise.

auto lo xenbr0

iface xenbr0 inet dhcp
        bridge_ports eth0 

c. Setup the xensource-inventory file:

Note: this assumes that the root partition is on /dev/sda1 - change if required. Note: this assumes that your management interface will be xenbr0 - change if required.

control_domain=`uuidgen`
installation=`uuidgen`

cat > /etc/xensource-inventory << EOF
CURRENT_INTERFACES='xenbr0'
BUILD_NUMBER='0'
CONTROL_DOMAIN_UUID='${control_domain}' 
INSTALLATION_UUID='${installation}'
MANAGEMENT_INTERFACE='xenbr0'
PRIMARY_DISK='/dev/sda1'
EOF

Using XCP

Ensure that xapi is running with "service xapi status". If you don't get the response "* xapi is running", you will need to run "service xapi start".

Set up your path:

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/lib/xen-common/xapi/bin

Set up a storage repository. For now, we recommend NFS, or EXT if you have an unused block device. For example:

SR=`xe sr-create type=nfs name-label=nfs device-config:server=<nfs server> device-config:serverpath=<path on server>`

or

Note: DANGER!!! The partition selected will be formatted, and all data on it wiped. Ensure that you select the device correctly and that you have backed up any existing information on this partition.

SR=`xe sr-create type=ext device-config:device=/dev/sda3 name-label=ext` 

Set this as pool default SR:

POOL=`xe pool-list --minimal`
xe pool-param-set uuid=$POOL default-SR=$SR

To install windows, you'll need an iso. These can be served by an NFS server. Try this:

xe-mount-iso-sr nfs-server:/path/to/isos

Then create a windows VM:

xe vm-install template=Windows\ 7\ \(32-bit\) new-name-label=windows
xe vm-cd-add vm=windows cd-name=win7.iso device=3
xe vm-start vm=windows

To get networking working, you'll need to manually set up the bridge:

brctl addbr xenbr0
brctl addif xenbr0 eth0

You may need to move the IP address to the bridge rather than the physical interface. Having done this, try a pif-scan:

 
xe pif-scan

This might create the network for your interface.

PV drivers for Windows

wget http://downloads.xen.org/XCP/debian/xs-tools-5.9.960.iso
mv xs-tools-5.9.960.iso /usr/lib/xen-common/xapi/packages/iso

After doing this, rescan the SR to pick up the new ISO.

Compiling from source

The easiest way to compile the XCP toolstack from source is to use the xapi-autobuilder.

First install the perquisites:

apt-get install pbuilder debhelper dh-ocaml dh-autoreconf cdebootstrap python-debian mercurial git
wget http://downloads.xen.org/XCP/debian/blktap-dkms_0.1_all.deb
dpkg -i blktap-dkms_0.1_all.deb

Then clone xapi-autobuilder and build:

git clone https://github.com/jonludlam/xapi-autobuilder.git
cd xapi-autobuilder
make clean ; make

This will build all of the required Debian packages for Xapi (except for vncterm, which is only available as a binary until we sort out licensing issues). Take a look at xapi-autobuilder/build.sh to see what's going on inside. You can modify the files git-repos and hg-repos to point to your own repositories if you plan on compiling your own code. If you only want to build a subset of the packages, comment out the ones you don't want to build from the build.sh script.

You can manually download all of the latest packages and source packages using:

wget -r -l1 --no-parent -nd http://downloads.xen.org/XCP/debian/latest/
rm index.html*

[{Category:Users]]