Xen on SuSE Linux

Setup notes - Xen 3.0 on SuSE Linux

Start by installing SuSE Linux v10.1

Once installed make sure the network setup is as desired. In my case I am using only eth1 so I set eth0 and eth2 to disabled by modifying the appropriate files in /etc/sysconfig/network/

Use Yast to install the xen packages. My server has 8G RAM so I make sure to choose the xen-pae packages which allow it to see more than 4G.

The specific packages...

• cloop-kmp-xenpae-2.01_2.6.16.13_4-22
• xen-tools-ioemu-3.0.2_09656-4
• kernel-xenpae-2.6.16.13-4
• xen-doc-html-3.0.2_09656-4
• novfs-kmp-xenpae-1.2.0_2.6.16.13_4-10
• xen-tools-3.0.2_09656-4
• xen-3.0.2_09656-4
• xen-libs-3.0.2_09656-4

Note that any dependencies get pulled in automatically.

Tweak /boot/grub/menu.lst to make sure the Xen kernel is the default. Add dom0_mem=128000 to the kernel line (bug? otherwise xen kernel aka Dom0 gobbles up almost all available memory as evidenced by xm info).

Reboot and 'xm list' - should see something like this:

# xm list
Name                              ID Mem(MiB) VCPUs State  Time(s)
Domain-0                           0     7355     4 r-----   801.0

Try 'xm info' also. System is now ready for creation of guests.

I also tweaked /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp to change the device used to build the bridge (xenbr0)

(network-script 'network-bridge netdev=eth1')