Mailing List Archive: Xen partitions

Hi

Just an information enquiry about how xen views the partitions on a disk.

Basially I installed Fedora on a partition (partition was /xen4) from
teh fedora cd's. Much like a normal install except for installing a
boot loader. I then configured the fedora file in the /etc/xen
directory, to the following:

kernel ="/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.1226_FC4xenU"
memory = 100
name = "fc-4"
nics = 1
disk = ['phy:hda7,hda7,w']
root = "/dev/hda7 ro"

And then started the domain. The domain came up ok, except for kudzu
complaining about missing hardware. I continued to use it fine and
then realised that I had not re-configured /etc/fstab in the fc-4
domain. So /etc/fstab looked like this

/dev/hda7 / ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
/dev/shm /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/sys /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
/dev/hda12 swap swap defaults 0 0

My question is how did the domain work and boot up. I thought I had to
reconfigure the file in the /etc/xen/ directory and /etc/fstab in the
domain to be sda, e.g. sda1.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Many Thanks
Shaz

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> kernel ="/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.1226_FC4xenU"
> memory = 100
> name = "fc-4"
> nics = 1
> disk = ['phy:hda7,hda7,w']
> root = "/dev/hda7 ro"

> /dev/hda7 / ext3 defaults 1 1
> /dev/devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
> /dev/shm /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
> /dev/proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
> /dev/sys /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
> /dev/hda12 swap swap defaults 0 0

> My question is how did the domain work and boot up. I thought I had to
> reconfigure the file in the /etc/xen/ directory and /etc/fstab in the
> domain to be sda, e.g. sda1.

No, that's fine. The syntax for disk entries in the config is: 'dom0_device,
domU_device, r/w". You're exporting the dom0's hda7 (the real hda7) to the
guest as hda7. The fstab matched so everything works. (unless you export a
device that looks like hda12 to the guest you won't have any swap, however).

There's no rule that says you can't export things to the guest whilst
retaining their real device names.

You could change your config file to say:
disk = ['phy:hda7,hda7,w', 'phy:hda12,hda12,w']
to make swap work in the domain. Then your domain fstab will work unchanged
under Xen and natively. (NB, do make sure you're not also using hda12 as swap
in dom0, otherwise things will get nasty)

HTH,
Mark

>
> Any guidance would be appreciated.
>
> Many Thanks
> Shaz
>
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-users mailing list
> Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users

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