Xen FAQ Linux Distributions

What Debian packages do I need for Xen?

To run Xen and a single OS from a binary release you need install no extra packages. To build Xen, XenLinux and documentation from source you will need: make, libncurses5-dev, libncurses5, gcc, libc6-dev, zlib1g-dev, python, python-dev, python-twisted, openssl, openssl-dev, bridge-utils, iproute, libcurl3, libcurl3-dev, bzip2, module-init-tools, latex, latex2html, transfig, and tgif.

How do I fix the 4gb seg fixup messages in my syslog?

These messages are from a glibc that was built with negative GS register offsets. Xen can run with negative GS register references, but it must "trap and emulate" this condition, which is relatively resource intensive, and quite slow.

If you don't have a patched glibc, see the no-tls-direct-seg-refs patch mentioned in XenSpecificGlibc.

Most newer distributions are shipped with a "-mno-tls-direct-seg-refs" compiled glibc, but it might not be enabled by default.

Some newer distributions like the RHEL5 Beta1/Beta2 require the ld.so.conf.d trick below to refer to the patched glibc.

Some slightly older distributions like Ubuntu Dapper can be fixed with a simple rebuild of glibc: (see UbuntuDapperHowTo).

 echo 'hwcap 0 nosegneg' > /etc/ld.so.conf.d/libc6-xen.conf && ldconfig

Reference Link: http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-users/2006-11/msg00026.html and http://www.mail-archive.com/fedora-xen@redhat.com/msg00041.html

Where do I find more information about Xen and my favorite Linux/Unix distro?

Ubuntu

• Virtualization help page
• Xen wiki page
• Xen help page

Debian

• Xen wiki page
• Debian Xen package development list

Fedora

• Virtualization Wiki page
• Xen list
• Virtualization list

CentOS

• Xen lists
• Xen wiki page
• There are also other Xen-related pages on CentOS wiki... see search

OpenSUSE

• Xen lists
• Xen wiki page

Gentoo

• Xen wiki page

Arch Linux

• Xen wiki page

NetBSD

• Xen list
• Xen wiki page

FreeBSD

• Xen wiki page

Solaris

• Xen wiki page