Virtualization Guide

Red Hat Virtualization

Virtualization Guide: Red Hat Virtualization

Copyright © 2007 Red Hat, Inc.

This Guide contains information on configuring, creating and monitoring guest operating sys-
tems on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, using virsh, xm, vmm and xend.

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Table of Contents
1. Red Hat Virtualization System Architecture ..............................................................1
2. Operating System Support ......................................................................................3
3. Hardware Support ..................................................................................................5
4. Red Hat Virtualization System Requirements ...........................................................7
5. Booting the System ................................................................................................8
6. Configuring GRUB .................................................................................................9
7. Booting a Guest Domain .......................................................................................11
8. Starting/Stopping a Domain at Boot Time ..............................................................12
9. Configuration Files ...............................................................................................13
10. Managing CPUs .................................................................................................14
11. Migrating a Domain ............................................................................................15
12. Configuring for Use on a Network ........................................................................16
13. Securing Domain0 ..............................................................................................17
14. Storage .............................................................................................................18
15. Managing Virtual Machines with virsh ..................................................................19
1. Connecting to a Hypervisor ...........................................................................19
2. Creating a Virtual Machine ............................................................................19
3. Configuring an XML Dump ............................................................................19
4. Suspending a Virtual Machine .......................................................................19
5. Resuming a Virtual Machine .........................................................................20
6. Saving a Virtual Machine ..............................................................................20
7. Restoring a Virtual Machine ..........................................................................20
8. Shutting Down a Virtual Machine ...................................................................20
9. Rebooting a Virtual Machine .........................................................................21
10. Terminating a Domain ................................................................................21
11. Converting a Domain Name to a Domain ID .................................................21
12. Converting a Domain ID to a Domain Name .................................................21
13. Converting a Domain Name to a UUID ........................................................21
14. Displaying Virtual Machine Information ........................................................22
15. Displaying Node Information .......................................................................22
16. Displaying the Virtual Machines ...................................................................22
17. Displaying Virtual CPU Information ..............................................................23
18. Configuring Virtual CPU Affinity ...................................................................23
19. Configuring Virtual CPU Count ....................................................................23
20. Configuring Memory Allocation ....................................................................23
21. Configuring Maximum Memory ....................................................................24
16. Managing Virtual Machines Using xend ...............................................................25
17. Managing Virtual Machines Using xm ..................................................................28
1. xm Configuration File ...................................................................................28
1.1. Configuring vfb ..................................................................................29
2. Creating and Managing Domains with xm ......................................................30
2.1. Connecting to a Domain ....................................................................30
2.2. Creating a Domain ............................................................................31
2.3. Saving a Domain ...............................................................................31
2.4. Terminating a Domain ID ...................................................................31

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 Virtualization Guide

2.5. Shutting Down a Domain ...................................................................31

2.6. Restoring a Domain ...........................................................................31
2.7. Suspending a Domain .......................................................................32
2.8. Resuming a Domain ..........................................................................32
2.9. Rebooting a Domain ..........................................................................32
2.10. Renaming a Domain ........................................................................32
2.11. Pausing a Domain ...........................................................................32
2.12. Unpausing a Domain .......................................................................32
2.13. Converting a Domain Name to Domain ID .........................................33
2.14. Converting a Domain ID to Domain Name .........................................33
2.15. Configuring Memory Allocation .........................................................33
2.16. Configuring Maximum Memory .........................................................33
2.17. Configuring VCPU Count .................................................................33
2.18. Pinning a VCPU ..............................................................................34
2.19. Migrating a Domain .........................................................................34
3. Monitoring and Diagnostics ...........................................................................34
3.1. Performing a Core Dump ...................................................................34
3.2. Monitoring Domains in Real Time .......................................................35
3.3. Displaying Domain States ..................................................................35
4. Displaying Uptime ........................................................................................36
5. Displaying VCPU Information ........................................................................36
6. Displaying Domain Information .....................................................................36
7. Displaying TPM Devices ...............................................................................37
8. Displaying the xend Log ...............................................................................37
9. Displaying the Message Buffer ......................................................................37
10. Displaying ACM State Information ...............................................................38
11. Displaying Vnets ........................................................................................38
12. Displaying Virtual Block Devices .................................................................38
13. Displaying Virtual Network Interfaces ...........................................................38
14. Creating a New Virtual Network Device .......................................................38
15. Terminating a Virtual Network Device ..........................................................39
16. Creating a New Vnet ..................................................................................39
17. Terminating a Vnet .....................................................................................39
18. Creating a Domain Security Label ...............................................................40
19. Testing the Domain Resources ...................................................................40
20. Displaying System Resources .....................................................................40
21. Configuring Credit Scheduling .....................................................................40
22. Creating a New Virtual Block Device ...........................................................40
23. Terminating a Virtual Block Device ..............................................................41
24. Security .....................................................................................................41
24.1. Removing a Domain Security Label ..................................................41
24.2. Creating a Resource Security Label ..................................................41
24.3. Removing a Resource Security Label ...............................................42
24.4. Configuring Access Control ..............................................................42
24.5. Creating a Policy .............................................................................43
24.6. Loading a Policy ..............................................................................43
24.7. Creating a Policy for Boot Configuration ............................................43
24.8. Creating a Label ..............................................................................43
24.9. Displaying Policy Labels ..................................................................43
24.10. Displaying Domain Security Labels .................................................44

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 Virtualization Guide

24.11. Displaying Resource Security Labels ..............................................44

24.12. Configuring Access Control Security ...............................................44
24.13. Compiling a Security Policy ............................................................44
24.14. Loading the Security Policy ............................................................44
24.15. Configuring a Boot Security Policy ..................................................44
24.16. Displaying Security Labels .............................................................45
24.17. Attaching a Security Label ..............................................................45
18. Managing Virtual Machines with Virtual Machine Manager ....................................47
1. Virtual Machine Manager Architecture ...........................................................47
2. The Open Connection Window .....................................................................47
3. Virtual Machine Manager Window .................................................................48
4. Virtual Machine Details Window ....................................................................48
5. Virtual Machine Graphical Console ................................................................49
6. Starting the Virtual Machine Manager ............................................................50
7. Creating a New Virtual Machine ....................................................................51
8. Restoring A Saved Machine ..........................................................................60
9. Displaying Virtual Machine Details ................................................................62
10. Configuring Status Monitoring .....................................................................65
11. Displaying Domain ID .................................................................................66
12. Displaying Virtual Machine Status ...............................................................68
13. Displaying Virtual CPUs ..............................................................................69
14. Displaying CPU Usage ...............................................................................70
15. Displaying Memory Usage ..........................................................................71
19. Red Hat Virtualization Troubleshooting ................................................................74
1. Logfile Overview and Locations .....................................................................74
2. Logfile Descriptions ......................................................................................74
3. Important Directory Locations .......................................................................75
4. Troubleshooting Tools ..................................................................................75
5. Troubleshooting with the Logs ......................................................................77
6. Troubleshooting with the Serial Console ........................................................77
7. Paravirtualized Guest Console Access ..........................................................78
8. Full Virtualization Guest Console Access .......................................................78
9. Implementing Lun Persistence ......................................................................78
10. SELinux Considerations .............................................................................80
11. Accessing Data on Guest Disk Image ..........................................................80
12. Common Troubleshooting Situations ...........................................................81
13. Loop Device Errors ....................................................................................82
14. Guest Creation Errors .................................................................................82
15. Serial Console Errors .................................................................................83
16. Network Bridge Errors ................................................................................83
17. Laptop Configurations ................................................................................84
18. Starting Domains Automatically During System Boot ....................................86
19. Modifying Domain0 ....................................................................................87
20. Guest Configuration Files ...........................................................................87
21. Cloning the Guest Configuration Files ..........................................................88
22. Creating a Script to Generate MAC Addresses .............................................88
23. Configuring Virtual Machine Live Migration ..................................................89
24. Interpreting Error Messages ........................................................................89
25. Online Troubleshooting Resources ..............................................................92
20. Additional Resources ..........................................................................................94

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 1. Useful Websites ...........................................................................................94
2. Installed Documentation ...............................................................................94
A. Revision History ..................................................................................................95
B. Lab 1 ..................................................................................................................96
C. Lab 2 ................................................................................................................ 101
 Chapter 1. Red Hat Virtualization
System Architecture
A functional Red Hat Virtualization system is multi-layered and is driven by the privileged Red
Hat Virtualization component. Red Hat Virtualization can host multiple guest operating systems.
Each guest operating system runs in its own domain, Red Hat Virtualization schedules virtual
CPUs within the virtual machines to make the best use of the available physical CPUs. Each
guest operating systems handles its own applications. These guest operating systems schedule
each application accordingly.

You can deploy Red Hat Virtualization in one of two choices: full virtualization or paravirtual-
ization. Full virtualization provides total abstraction of the underlying physical system and cre-
ates a new virtual system in which the guest operating systems can run. No modifications are
needed in the guest OS or application (the guest OS or application is not aware of the virtual-
ized environment and runs normally). Paravirualization requires user modification of the guest
operating systems that run on the virtual machines (these guest operating systems are aware
that they are running on a virtual machine) and provide near-native performance. You can de-
ploy both paravirtualization and full virtualization across your virtualization infrastructure.

The first domain, known as domain0 (dom0), is automatically created when you boot the sys-
tem. Domain0 is the privileged guest and it possesses management capabilities which can cre-
ate new domains and manage their virtual devices. Domain0 handles the physical hardware,
such as network cards and hard disk controllers. Domain0 also handles administrative tasks
such as suspending, resuming, or migrating guest domains to other virtual machines.

The hypervisor (Red Hat's Virtual Machine Monitor) is a virtualization platform that allows mul-
tiple operating systems to run on a single host simultaneously within a full virtualization environ-
ment. A guest is an operating system (OS) that runs on a virtual machine in addition to the host
or main OS.

With Red Hat Virtualization, each guests memory comes from a slice of the host's physical
memory. For paravirtual guests, you can set both the initial memory and the maximum size of
the virtual machine. You can add (or remove) physical memory to the virtual machine at runtime
without exceeding the maximum size you specify. This process is called ballooning.

You can configure each guest with a number of virtual cpus (called vcpus). The Virtual Machine
Manager schedules the vcpus according to the workload on the physical CPUs.

You can grant a guest any number of virtual disks. The guest sees these as either hard disks
or (for full virtual guests) as CD-ROM drives. Each virtual disk is served to the guest from a
block device or from a regular file on the host. The device on the host contains the entire full
disk image for the guest, and usually includes partition tables, multiple partitions, and potentially
LVM physical volumes.

Virtual networking interfaces runs on the guest. Other interfaces can run on the guest like vir-
tual ethernet internet cards (VNICs). These network interfaces are configured with a persistent
virtual media access control (MAC) address. The default installation of a new guest installs the
VNIC with a MAC address selected at random from a reserved pool of over 16 million ad-

1
dresses, so it is unlikely that any two guests will receive the same MAC address. Complex sites
with a large number of guests can allocate MAC addresses manually to ensure that they remain
unique on the network.

Each guest has a virtual text console that connects to the host. You can redirect guest logins
and console output to the text console.

You can configure any guest to use a virtual graphical console that corresponds to the normal
video console on the physical host. You can do this for full virtual and paravirtual guests. It em-
ploys the features of the standard graphic adapter like boot messaging, graphical booting, mul-
tiple virtual terminals, and can launch the x window system. You can also use the graphical key-
board to configure the virtual keyboard and mouse.

Guests can be identified in any of three identities: domain name (domain-name), identity
(domain-id), or UUID. The domain-name is a text string that corresponds to a guest configura-
tion file. The domain-name is used to launch the guests, and when the guest runs the same
name is used to identify and control it. The domain-id is a unique, non-persistent number that
gets assigned to an active domain and is used to identify and control it. The UUID is a persist-
ent, unique identifier that is controlled from the guest's configuration file and ensures that the
guest is identified over time by system management tools. It is visible to the guest when it runs.
A new UUID is automatically assigned to each guest by the system tools when the guest first in-
stalls.

2
 Chapter 2. Operating System
Support
Red Hat Virtualization's paravirtualization mode allows you to utilize high performance virtualiza-
tion on architectures that are potentially difficult to virtualize such as x86 based systems. To de-
ploy para-virtualization across your operating system(s), you need access to the paravirtual
guest kernels that are available from a respective Red Hat distro (for example, RHEL 4.0, RHEL
5.0, etc.). Whilst your operating system kernels must support Red Hat Virtualization, it is not ne-
cessary to modify user applications or libraries.

Red Hat Virtualization allows you to run an unmodified guest kernel if you have Intel VT and
AMD SVM CPU hardware. You do not have to port your operating system to deploy this archi-
tecture on your Intel VT or AMD SVM systems. Red Hat Virtualization supports:

• Intel VT-x or AMD-V Pacifica and Vanderpool technology for full and paravirtualization.

• Intel VT-i for ia64

• Linux and UNIX operating systems, including NetBSD, FreeBSD, and Solaris.

• Microsoft Windows as an unmodified guest operating system with Intel Vanderpool or AMD's
Pacifica technology.

To run full virtualization guests on systems with Hardware-assisted Virtual Machine (HVM), In-
tel, or AMD platforms, you must check to ensure your CPUs have the capabilities needed to do
so.

To check if you have the CPU flags for Intel support, enter the following:

grep vmx /proc/cpuinfo

The output displays:

flags : fpu tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht

If a vmx flag appears then you have Intel support.

To check if you have the CPU flags for AMD support, enter the following:

grep svm /proc/cpuinfo

cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep svm

The output displays:

3
 flags : fpu tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dt acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht

If an svm flag appears then you have AMD support.

note
In addition to checking the CPU flags, you should enable full virtualization within
your system BIOS.

4
 Chapter 3. Hardware Support
Red Hat Virtualization supports multiprocessor systems and allows you to run Red Hat Virtualiz-
ation on x86 architectured systems with a P6 class (or earlier) processors like:

• Celeron

• Pentium II

• Pentium III

• Pentium IV

• Xeon

• AMD Athlon

• AMD Duron

With Red Hat Virtualization, 32-bit hosts runs only 32-bit paravirtual guests. 64-bit hosts runs
only 64-bit paravirtual guests. And a 64-bit full virtualization host runs 32-bit, 32-bit PAE, or
64-bit guests. A 32-bit full virtualization host runs both PAE and non-PAE full virtualization
guests.

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux Virtualization kernel does not support more than 32GB of memory
for x86_64 systems. If you need to boot the virtualization kernel on systems with more than
32GB of physical memory installed, you must append the kernel command line with mem=32G.
This example shows how to enable the proper parameters in the grub.conf file:

title Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (2.6.18-4.elxen)

root (hd0, 0)
kernel /xen.gz-2.6.18-4-el5 mem=32G
module /vmlinuz -2.6.18-4.el5xen ro root=LABEL=/
module /initrd-2.6.18-4.el5xen.img

PAE (Physical Address Extension) is a technology that increases the amount of physical or vir-
tual memory available to user applications. Red Hat Virtualization requires that PAE is active on
your systems. Red Hat Virtualization 32 bit architecture with PAE supports up to 16 GB of phys-
ical memory. It is recommended that you have at least 256 megabytes of RAM for every guest
you have running on the system. Red Hat Virtualization enables x86/64 machines to address up
to physical 64 GB. The Red Hat Virtualization kernels will not run on a non-PAE system. To de-
termine if a system supports PAE, type the following commands:

grep pae /proc/cpuinfo

The following output displays:

5
 flags : fpu tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse syscall mmtext 3dnowext 3dnow

If your output matches (or is similar to) the above, then your CPU supports PAE. If the com-
mand prompt displays nothing, then your CPU does not support PAE.

6
 Chapter 4. Red Hat Virtualization
System Requirements
The items listed below are required by the Red Hat Virtualization system:

• A working Red Hat RHEL 5 Linux distribution

• A working GRUB bootloader

• Root access

• A P6 class (or earlier) processor

• The Linux bridge-utils

• The Linux hotplug systems

• zlib development installation

• Python 2.2 runtime

• initscripts

The dependencies are configured automatically during the installation process.

7
 Chapter 5. Booting the System
After installing the Red Hat Virtualization components, you must reboot the system. When the
boot completes, you must log into your system as usual. Then before you start Red Hat Virtual-
ization you must log in a root. The xend control daemon should already be initiated by
initscripts, but to start the xend manually, enter:

service xend start

You can also use chkconfig xend when installing to enable xend at boot time.

The xend node control daemon performs system management functions that relate to virtual
machines. This daemon controls the virtualized resources, and xend must be running to interact
with virtual machines. Before you start xend, you must specify the operating parameters by edit-
ing the xend configuration file xend-config.sxp which is located in the etc/xen directory.

8
 Chapter 6. Configuring GRUB
GNU Grand Unified Boot Loader (or GRUB) is a program which enables the user to select
which installed operating system or kernel to load at system boot time. It also allows the user to
pass arguments to the kernel. The GRUB configuration file (located in /boot/grub/grub.conf) is
used to create a list of operating systems to boot in GRUB's menu interface. When you install
the kernel-xen RPM, a post script adds kernel-xen entries to the GRUB configuration file. You
can edit the grub.conf file and enable the following GRUB parameter:

title Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (2.6.18-3.el5xen)

root (hd0; 0)
kernel /xen.gz.-2.6.18-3.el5
module /vmlinuz-2.6..18-3.el5xen ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
module /initrd-2.6.18-3. el5xenxen.img

If you set your Linux grub entries to reflect this example, the boot loader loads the hypervisor,
initrd image, and Linux kernel. Since the kernel entry is on top of the other entries, the kernel
loads into memory first. The boot loader sends (and recieves) command line arguments to and
from the hypervisor and Linux kernel. This example entry shows how you would restrict the Do-
main0 linux kernel memory to 800 MB:

title Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (2.6.18-3.el5xen)

root (hd0; 0)
kernel /xen.gz.-2.6.18-3.el5 dom0_mem=800M
module /vmlinuz-2.6..18-3.el5xen ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
module /initrd-2.6.18-3. el5xenxen.img

You can use these GRUB parameters to configure the Virtualization hypervisor:

mem

This limits the amount of memory that is available for domain0.

com1=115200, 8n1

This enables the first serial port in the system to act as serial console (com2 is assigned for the
next port, and so on...).

dom0_mem

9
This limits the amount of memory that is available for domain0.

dom0_max_vcpus

This limits the amount of CPUs visible to domain0.

acpi

This switches the ACPI hypervisor to the hypervisor and domain0. The ACPI parameter options
include:

/* **** Linux config options: propagated to domain0 ****/

/* "acpi=off": Disables both ACPI table parsing and interpreter. */
/* "acpi=force": Overrides the disable blacklist. */
/* "acpi=strict": Disables out-of-spec workarounds. */
/* "acpi=ht": Limits ACPI from boot-time to enable HT. */
/* "acpi=noirq": Disables ACPI interrupt routing. */

noacpi

This disables ACPI for interrupt delivery.

10
 Chapter 7. Booting a Guest Domain
You can boot guest domains by using the xm application. You can also use virsh and the Virtual
Machine Manager to boot the guests. A prerequisite for booting a guest domain is to install a
guest host first. This example uses the xm create subcommand:

# xm create -c guestdomain1

The guestdomain1 is the configuration file for the domain you are booting. The -c option con-
nects to the actual console after booting.

11
 Chapter 8. Starting/Stopping a
Domain at Boot Time
You can start or stop running domains at any time. Domain0 waits for all running domains to
shutdown before restarting. You must place the configuration files of the domains you wish to
shut down in the /etc/xen/ directory. All the domains that you want to start at boot time must be
symlinked to /etc/xen/auto.

chkconfig xendomains on

The chkconfig xendomains on command does not automatically start domains; instead it will
start the domains on the next boot.

chkconfig xendomains off

Terminates all running Red Hat Virtualization domains. The chkconfig xendomains off com-
mand shuts down the domains on the next boot.

12
 Chapter 9. Configuration Files
Red Hat Virtualization configuration files contain the following standard variables. Configuration
items within these files must be enclosed in quotes ("). These configuration files reside in the /
etc/xen directory.

Item Description

pae Specifies the physical address extention con-

figuration data.

apic Specifies the advanced programmable inter-

rupt controller configuration data.

memory Specifies the memory size in megabytes.

vcpus Specifies the numbers of virtual CPUs.

console Specifies the port numbers to export the do-

main consoles to.

nic Specifies the number of virtual network inter-

faces.

vif Lists the randomly-assigned MAC addresses

and bridges assigned to use for the domain's
network addresses.

disk Lists the block devices to export to the do-

main and exports physical devices to domain
with read only access.

dhcp Enables networking using DHCP.

netmask Specifies the configured IP netmasks.

gateway Specifies the configured IP gateways.

acpi Specifies the advanced configuration power

interface configuration data.

Table 9.1. Red Hat Virtualization Configuration Files

13
 Chapter 10. Managing CPUs
Red Hat Virtualization allows a domain's virtual CPUs to associate with one or more host CPUs.
This can be used to allocate real resources among one or more guests. This approach allows
Red Hat Virtualization to make optimal use of processor resources when employing dual-core,
hyperthreading, or other advanced CPU technologies. If you are running I/O intensive tasks, its
typically better to dedicate either a hyperthread or entire core to run domain0. The Red Hat Vir-
tualization credit scheduler automatically rebalances virtual cpus between physical ones, to
maximize system use. The Red Hat Virtualization system allows the credit scheduler to move
CPUs around as necessary, as long as the virtual CPU is pinned to a physical CPU.

14
 Chapter 11. Migrating a Domain
Migration is the transferal of a running virtual domain from one physical host to another. Red
Hat Virtualization supports two varieties of migration — offline and live. Offline migration moves
a virtual machine from one host to another by pausing it, transferring its memory, and then re-
suming it on the host destination. Live migration does the same thing, but does not directly af-
fect the domain. When performing a live migration, the domain continues its usual activities, and
from the user perspective is unnoticeable. To initiate a live migration, both hosts must be run-
ning Red Hat Virtualization and the xend daemon. The destinations host must have sufficient re-
sources (such as memory capacity) to accommodate the domain bandwidth after the migration.
Both the source and destination machines must have the same architecture and virtualization
extensions (such as i386-VT, x86-64-VT, x86-64-SVM, etc.) and must be on the same L2 sub-
net.

When a domain migrates its MAC and IP addresses move with it. Only virtual machines with the
same layer-2 network and subnets will successfully migrate. If the destination node is on a dif-
ferent subnet, the administrator must manually configure a suitable EtherIP or IP tunnel in the
remote node of domain0. The xend daemon stops the domain and copies the job over to the
new node and restarts it. The Red Hat Virtualization RPM does not enable migration from any
other host except the localhost (see the /etc/xend-config.sxp file for information). To allow the
migration target to accept incoming migration requests from remote hosts, you must modify the
target's xen-relocation-hosts-allow parameter. Be sure to carefully restrict which hosts are al-
lowed to migrate, since there is no authentication.

Since these domains have such large file allocations, this process can be time consuming. If
you migrate a domain with open network connections, they will be preserved on the host destin-
ation, and SSH connections should still function. The default Red Hat Virtualization iptables
rules will not permit incoming migration connections. To allow this, you must create explicit ipt-
ables rules.

You can use the xm migrate command to perform an offline migration :

xm migrate domain-id [destination domain]

You can use the xm migrate command to perform a live migration:

xm migrate domain-id -l [destination domain]

You may need to reconnect to the domain's console on the new machine. You can use the xm
console command to reconnect.

15
Chapter 12. Configuring for Use on a
Network
Integrating Red Hat Virtualization into your network architecture is a complicated process and
depending upon your infrastructure, may require custom configuration to deploy multiple ether-
net interfaces and setup bridging.

Each domain network interface is connected to a virtual network interface in dom0 by a point to
point link. These devices are vif<domid> and <vifid>. vif1.0 for the first interface in domain 1;
vif3.1 for the second interface in domain 3.

Domain0 handles traffic on these virtual interfaces by using standard Linux conventions for
bridging, routing, rate limiting, etc. The xend daemon employs two shell scripts to perform initial
configuration of your network and new virtual interfaces. These scripts configure a single bridge
for all virtual interfaces. You can configure additional routing and bridging by customizing these
scripts.

Red Hat Virtualization's virtual networking is controlled by the two shell scripts, network-bridge
and vif-bridge. xend calls these scripts when certain events occur. Arguments can be passed
to the scripts to provide additional contextual information. These scripts are located in the /
etc/xen/scripts directory. You can change script properties by modifying the xend-config.sxp
configuration file located in the /etc/xen directory.

network-bridge — When xend is started or stopped, this script initializes or shuts down the vir-
tual network. Then the configuration initialization creates the bridge xen—br0 and moves eth0
onto that bridge, modifying the routing accordingly. When xend finally exits, it deletes the bridge
and removes eth0, thereby restoring the original IP and routing configuration.

vif-bridge is a script that is invoked for every virtual interface on the domain. It configures fire-
wall rules and can add the vif to the appropriate bridge.

There are other scripts that you can use to help in setting up Red Hat Virtualization to run on
your network, such as network-route, network-nat, vif-route, and vif-nat. Or these scripts can
be replaced with customized variants.

16
 Chapter 13. Securing Domain0
When deploying Red Hat Virtualization on your corporate infrastructure, you must ensure that
domain0 cannot be compromised. Domain0 is the privileged domain that handles system man-
agement. If domain0 is insecure, all other domains in the system are vulnerable. There are sev-
eral ways to implement security you should know about when integrating Red Hat Virtualization
into your systems. Together with other people in your organization,you should create
a'deployment plan' that contains the operating specifications and services that will run on Red
Hat Virtualization, and what is needed to support these services. Here are some security issues
to consider when putting together a deployment plan:

• Run the lowest number of necessary services. You do not want to include too many jobs and
services in domain0. The less things running on domain0, the higher the level of security.

• Enable SeLINUX to help secure domain0.

• Use a firewall to restrict traffic to domain0. You can setup a firewall with default-reject rules
that will help secure attacks on domain0. It is also important to limit network facing services.

• Do not allow normal users to access domain0. If you do permit normal users domain0 ac-
cess, you run the risk of rendering domain0 vulnerable. Remember, domain0 is privileged,
and granting unprivilged accounts may compromise the level of security.

17
 Chapter 14. Storage
There are several ways to manage virtual machine storage. You can export a domain0 physical
block device (hard drive or partition) to a guest domain as a virtual block device (VBD). You can
also export directly from a partitioned image as a file-backed VBD. Red Hat Virtualization en-
ables LVM and blktap by default during installation. You can also employ standard network pro-
tocols such as NFS, CLVM, or iSCSI to provide storage for virtual machines.

18
 Chapter 15. Managing Virtual
Machines with virsh
You can use the virsh application to manage virtual machines. This utility is built around the lib-
virt management API and operates as an alternative to the xm tool or the graphical Virtual Ma-
chine Manager. Unprivileged users can employ this utility for read-only operations. If you plan
on running xend/qemu, you should enable xend/qemu to run as a service. After modifying the re-
spective configuration file, reboot the system, and xend/qemu will run as a service. You can use
virsh to script vm work. Like the xm tool, you run virsh from the command line.

1. Connecting to a Hypervisor
You can use virsh to initiate a hypervisor session:

virsh connect <name>

Where <name> is the machine name of the hypervisor. If you want to initiate a read—only con-
nection, append the above command with —readonly.

2. Creating a Virtual Machine

You can make a new virtual machine session from an XML machine definition. If you have a
pre-existing guest that you created previously with the xm tool, you can also create a virtual ma-
chine for it:

virsh create <path to XML configuration file>

3. Configuring an XML Dump

You can use virsh to perform a data dump for an existing virtual machine.

virsh dumpxml [domain-id | domain-name | domain-uuid]

This command outputs the domain information (in XML) to stdout . If you save the data to a file,
you can use the create option to recreate the virtual machine.

4. Suspending a Virtual Machine

You can use virsh to suspend a domain:

19
 5. Resuming a Virtual Machine

virsh suspend [domain-id | domain-name |domain-uuid]

When a domain is in a suspended state, it still consumes system RAM. There will also be no
disk or network I/O when suspended. This operation is immediate and the virtual machine must
be restarted with the resume option .

5. Resuming a Virtual Machine

You can use virsh to restore a suspended virtual machine:

virsh resume [domain-id | domain-name | domain-uuid]

This operation is immediate and the virtual machine parameters are preserved in a suspend and
resume cycle.

6. Saving a Virtual Machine

You can use virsh to save the current state of a virtual machine to a file:

virsh save [domain-name][domain-id | domain-uuid][filename]

This stops the virtual machine you specify and saves the data to a file, which may take some
time given the amount of memory in use by your virtual machine. You can restore the state of
the virtual machine with the restore option .

7. Restoring a Virtual Machine

You can use virsh to restore a virtual machine that you previously saved with the virsh save
option :

virsh restore [filename]

This restarts the saved virtual machine, which may take some time. The virtual machine's name
and UUID are preserved but are allocated for a new id.

8. Shutting Down a Virtual Machine

You can use virsh to shut down a virtual machine:

virsh shutdown [domain-id | domain-name | domain-uuid]

20
 9. Rebooting a Virtual Machine

You can control the behavior of the rebooting virtual machine by modifying the on_shutdown
parameter of the xmdomain.cfg file.

9. Rebooting a Virtual Machine

You can use virsh to reboot a virtual machine:

virsh reboot [domain-id | domain-name | domain-uuid]

You can control the behavior of the rebooting virtual machine by modifying the on_reboot para-
meter of the xmdomain.cfg file.

10. Terminating a Domain

You can use virsh to terminate a virtual machine:

virsh destroy [domain-name | domain-id | domain-uuid]

This command does an immediate ungraceful shutdown and stops any guest domain sessions
(which could potentially lead to file corruptted filesystems still in use by the virtual machine). You
should use the destroy option only when the virtual machine's operating system is non-
responsive. For a paravirtualized virtual machine, you should use the shutdown option .

11. Converting a Domain Name to a Domain ID

You can use virsh to convert a domain name or UUID to a domain id:

virsh domid [domain-name | domain-uuid]

12. Converting a Domain ID to a Domain Name

You can use virsh to convert a domain id or UUID to a domain name:

virsh domname [domain-name | domain-uuid]

13. Converting a Domain Name to a UUID

You can use virsh to convert a domain name to a UUID:

virsh domuuid [domain-id | domain-uuid]

21
14. Displaying Virtual Machine Information
You can use virsh to display information for a given virtual machine identified by its domain ID,
domain name, or UUID:

virsh dominfo [domain-id | domain-name | domain-uuid]

15. Displaying Node Information

You can use virsh to display node information:

virsh nodeinfo

The outputs displays something similar to:

CPU model x86_64

CPU (s) 8
CPU frequency 2895 Mhz
CPU socket(s) 2
Core(s) per socket 2
Threads per core: 2
Numa cell(s) 1
Memory size: 1046528 kb

This displays the node information and the machines that support the virtualization process.

16. Displaying the Virtual Machines

You can use virsh to display the virtual machine list and the current state:

virsh list domain-name [ ——inactive | —— -all]

The ——inactive option lists inactive domains (domains that have been defined but are not cur-
rently active). The — -all domain lists all domains, whether active or not. Your output should re-
semble the this example:

ID Name State
————————————————
0 Domain0 running
1 Domain202 paused
2 Domain010 inactive
3 Domain9600 crashed
Here are the six domain states:

running lists domains currently active on the CPU

blocked lists domains that are blocked

paused lists domains that are suspended

shutdown lists domains that are in process of shutting down

shutoff lists domains that are completely down.

crashed lists domains that are crashed

17. Displaying Virtual CPU Information

You can use virsh to display virtual CPU information from a virtual machine:

virsh vcpuinfo [domain-id | domain-name | domain-uuid]

18. Configuring Virtual CPU Affinity

You can use virsh to configure the affinity of virtuals CPUs with physical CPUs:

virsh vcpupin [domain-id | domain-name | domain-uuid] [vcpu] , [cpulist]

Where [vcpu] is the virtual VCPU number and [cpulist] lists the physical number of CPUs.

19. Configuring Virtual CPU Count

You can use virsh to modify a Virtual Machine's number of CPUs:

virsh setvcpus [domain-name | domain-id | domain-uuid] [count]

Note that the new count cannot exceed the amount you specified when you created the Virtual
Machine.

20. Configuring Memory Allocation

You can use virsh to modify a domain's memory allocation:

virsh setmem [domain-id | domain-name] [count]

 21. Configuring Maximum Memory

You must specify the [count] in kilobytes. Note that the new count cannot exceed the amount
you specified when you created the Virtual Machine. Values lower than 64 MB probably won't
work. You can adjust the Virtual Machine memory as necessary.

21. Configuring Maximum Memory

You can use virsh to modify a Virtual Machine's maximum memory:

virsh setmaxmem [domain-name | domain-id | domain-uuid] [count]

You must specify the [count] in kilobytes. Note that the new count cannot exceed the amount
you specified when you created the Virtual Machine. Values lower than 64 MB probably won't
work. The maximum memory doesn't affect the current use of the Virtual Machine (unless the
new value is lower which should shrink memory usage).
 Chapter 16. Managing Virtual
Machines Using xend
The xend node control daemon performs certain system management functions that relate to
virtual machines. This daemon controls the virtualized resources, and xend must be running to
interact with virtual machines. Before you start xend, you must specify the operating parameters
by editing the xend configuration file xend-config.sxp which is located in the etc/xen directory.
Here are the parameters you can enable or disable in the xend-config.sxp configuration file:

Item Description

console-limit Determines the console server's memory buf-

fer limit and assigns values on a per-domain
basis

min-mem Determines the minimum number of mega-

bytes that is reserved for domain0 (if you
enter 0, the value does not change)

dom0 cpus Determines the number of CPUs in use by do-

main0 (at least 1 CPU is assigned by default)

enable-dump Determines that a crash occurs then enables

a dump (default is 0)

external-migration-tool Determines the script or application that

handles external device migration (scripts
must reside in etc/
xen/scripts/external-device-migrate

logfile Determines the location of the log file (default

is /var/log/xend.log)

loglevel Filters out the log mode values: DEBUG,

INFO, WARNING, ERROR, or CRITICAL
(default is DEBUG)

network-script Determines the script that enables the net-

working environment (scripts must reside in
etc/xen/scripts directory)

xend-http-server Enables the http stream packet management

server (default is no)

25
Item Description

xend-unix-server Enables the unix domain socket server (a

socket server is a communications endpoint
that handles low level network connections
and accepts or rejects incoming connections)

xend-relocation-server Enables the relocation server for cross-

machine migrations (default is no)

xend-unix-path Determines the location where the xend-

unix-server command outputs data (default is
var/lib/xend/xend-socket)

xend-port Determines the port that the http management

server uses (default is 8000)

xend-relocation-port Determines the port that the relocation server

uses (default is 8002)

xend-relocation-address Determines the virtual machine addresses

that are allowed for system migration

xend-address Determines the address that the domain sock-

et server binds to.

Table 16.1. Red Hat Virtualization xend Configuration Parameters

After setting these operating parameters, you should verify that xend is running and if not, initil-
ize the daemon. At the command prompt, you can start the xend daemon by entering the fol-
lowing:

service xend start

You can use xend to stop the daemon:

service xend stop

This stops the daemon from running.

You can use xend to restart the daemon:

26
 service xend restart

The daemon starts once again.

You check the status of the xend daemon.

service xend status

The output displays the daemon's status.

27
 Chapter 17. Managing Virtual
Machines Using xm
The xm application is a robust management tool that allows you to configure your Red Hat Vir-
tualization environment. As a prerequisite to using xm, you must ensure that the xend daemon
is running on your system.

1. xm Configuration File
The operating parameters that you must modify reside within the xmdomain.cfg file, which is loc-
ated in the etc/xen directory. Here are the parameters you can enable or disable in the xmdo-
main.cfg configuration file:

Item Description

kernel Determines the fully qualified path to the ker-

nel image

ramdisk Determines the fully qualified path to initrd for

the initial ramdisk

memory Determines the amount of RAM (in MB) to al-

locate for the domain when it starts

name Determines the unique name for a domain

root Determines the root device for a domain

nic Determines the number of network interface

cards for a domain (default is 1)

disk Determines the arrays of device block stanzas

— the three stanzas are:

· mode - device access mode

· backend-dev - the backend domain that ex-

ports to the guest domain

· frontend-dev - determines how the device

appears in a guest domain

vif Determines arrays of virtual interface stanzas

(each stanza represents a set of name=value
operations).

28
 1.1. Configuring vfb

Item Description

builder Determines the builder that constructs the do-

main (default is linux)

cpu Determines the CPU count for the domain to

start on. 0 indicates the first CPU, 1 the
second, etc. (default is -1)

cpus Determines which CPUs on the domain's

VCPUs are executable

extra Determines the additional information to ap-

pend to end of the kernel parameter line

nfs_server Determines the NFS server IP address to use

for the root device

nfs_root Determines the root directory as a fully quali-

fied path for the NFS server

vcpus Determines the number of virtual CPUs to al-

locate to a domain (default is 1)

on_shutdown Determines the domain shutdown parameter

to trigger a graceful shutdown (or xm shut-
down) from inside DomU

on_reboot Determines the domain shutdown parameter

to trigger a graceful reboot (or an xm reboot)
from inside DomU

on_crash Determines the domain shutdown parameter

that triggers DomU crashes.

Table 17.1. The xmdomain.cfg Configuration File

1.1. Configuring vfb

A vfb is a virtual frame buffer that is defined as a 'stanza'. The stanza represents a set of name
= value options, which when integrated into the xmdomain.cfg.5 file, must be separated by com-
mas. The vfb entry in your configuration file resembles:

vfb = [ "stanza" ] "name1=value1, name2=value2, "

29
 2. Creating and Managing Domains with xm

You can further configure your vfb environment by incorporating the options shown in Table
16.2:

Item Description

type The vnc type option initiates a VNC Server

session that connects to an external VNC
viewer. The sdl option initiates the internal
viewer.

vncdisplay Determines the VNC display number to use

(defaults to the domain ID value). The VNC
server listens on port 5900 + the display num-
ber.

vnclisten The VNC server's listening address (defaults

to 127.0.0.1).

vncunused Determines the numerical value and if non-

zero, enables the VNC server to listen for the
first unused port over 5900.

vncpasswd Overrides the default password configured by

Xend.

display Enables the display for the internal viewer to

use (defaults to environment variable DIS-
PLAY).

xauthority Enables the authority file for the internal view-

er to use (defaults to environment variable
XAUTHORITY).

Table 17.2. The vfb Configuration Options

2. Creating and Managing Domains with xm

You can use the xm application to create and manage domains.

2.1. Connecting to a Domain

You can use xm to connect to a domain or virtual machine:

xm console domain-id

30
This causes the console to attach to the domain-id's text console.

2.2. Creating a Domain

You can use xm to make a domain:

xm create domain001 [-c]

This creates a domain named domain001 with the file residing in the /etc/xen/ directory. The
[-c]option aids with troubleshooting by allowing you to connect to the text console.

2.3. Saving a Domain

You can use xm to save a domain:

xm save [domain-id] [statefile]

2.4. Terminating a Domain ID

You can use xm to terminate a domain-id:

xm destroy [domain-id]

This instantly terminates the domain-id. If you prefer another method of safely terminating your
session, you can use the shutdown parameter instead.

2.5. Shutting Down a Domain

You can use xm to shut down any domain:

xm shutdown [domain-id] [ -a | -w ]

The [ -a] option shuts down all domains on your system. The [-w] option waits for a domain
to completely shut down.

2.6. Restoring a Domain

You can use xm to restore a previously saved domain.

xm restore [state-file]
2.7. Suspending a Domain
You can use xm to suspend a domain:

xm suspend [domain-id]

2.8. Resuming a Domain

You can use xm to resume a previously suspended session:

xm resume [domain-id]

2.9. Rebooting a Domain

You can use xm to reboot a domain:

xm reboot [domain-id] [ -a | -w ]

The [ -a] option reboots all domains on your system. The [-w]option waits for a domain to
completely reboot. You can control the behavior of the rebooting domain by modifying the
on_boot parameter of the xmdomain.cfg file.

2.10. Renaming a Domain

You can use xm to assign a new name to an existing domain:

xm rename [domain-name] [new domain-name]

Domain renaming will keep the same settings (same hard disk, same memory, etc.).

2.11. Pausing a Domain

You can use xm to pause a domain:

xm pause [domain-id]

2.12. Unpausing a Domain

You can use xm to unpause a domain:
 2.13. Converting a Domain Name to Domain ID

xm unpause [domain-id]

This makes the domain available for scheduling by a hypervisor.

2.13. Converting a Domain Name to Domain ID

You can use xm to convert a domain name to a domain ID:

xm domid [domain-name]

2.14. Converting a Domain ID to Domain Name

You can use xm to convert a domain ID to a domain name:

xm domname [domain-id]

2.15. Configuring Memory Allocation

You can use xm to modify a domain's memory allocation:

xm mem-set [domain-id] [count]

Note
You cannot grow a domain's memory beyond the maximum amount you spe-
cified when you first created the domain.

2.16. Configuring Maximum Memory

You can use xm to modify a domain's maximum memory:

xm mem-max [domain-id] [count]

You must specify the [count] in megabytes.

2.17. Configuring VCPU Count

 2.18. Pinning a VCPU

You can use xm to modify a domain's VCPU count:

xm vcpu-set [domain-id] [count]

You must specify the [count] in megabytes.

Note
You cannot grow a domain's memory beyond the maximum amount you spe-
cified when you first created the domain.

2.18. Pinning a VCPU

You can use xm to pin a VCPU:

xm vcpu-pin [domain-id] [vcpu] [cpus]

Where [vcpu] is the VCPU that you want to attach to, and [cpus] is the target. Pinning ensures
that certain VCPUs can only run on certain CPUs.

2.19. Migrating a Domain

You can use xm to migrate a domain:

xm migrate [domain-id] [host] [options]

Where [domain-id] is the domain you want to migrate, and [host] is the target. The [options]
include ——live (or -l) for a live migration, or ——resource (or -r) to specify maximum speed of the
migration (in Mbs).

To ensure a successful migration, you must ensure that the xend daemon is running on all hosts
domains. All hosts must also be running Red Hat RHEL 5.0+ and have migration TCP ports
open to accept connections from the source hosts.

3. Monitoring and Diagnostics

3.1. Performing a Core Dump
You can use xm to perform a memory dump of an existing virtual machine.

xm dump-core [-C] [domain-id]

This command dumps the virtual machine's memory to the xendump file located in the /
var/xen/dump/ directory. You can terminate the virtual machine by including the -C option.

3.2. Monitoring Domains in Real Time

You can use xm to monitor domains and hosts in real time:

xm top [domain-id]

3.3. Displaying Domain States

You can use xm to display the domain activity states of one or more domains:

xm list [domain-id] [ ——long | ——label]

You can specify a specific domain(s) by name (s). The [——long] option provides a more detailed
breakdown of the domain you specified. The [——label] option adds an additional column that
displays label status. The outputs displays:

Name ID Mem(MiB) VCPUs State Time Label

————————————————
Domain0 0 927 8 r—————— 204.9 INACTIVE
Domain202 1 927 8 s—————— 205.0/command ACTIVE
DomainQ/A 2 927 8 b—————— INACTIVE
Domain9600 3 927 8 c—————— 205.1 ACTIVE

Here are the six domain states per VCPU:

State Description

running lists domains currently active on a CPU

blocked lists domains that are blocked (a domain be-

comes blocked when the vcpu is awaiting for
an external event to happen)

paused lists domains that are suspended

shutdown lists domains that are in process of shutting

down

35
State Description

shutoff lists domains that are completely down.

crashed lists domains that are crashed

inactive lists domains that are inactive instances

——all lists domains that are both active and inactive

vcpu instances

Table 17.3. The Domain States

4. Displaying Uptime
You can use xm to display the uptime:

xm uptime [domain-id]

The output displays:

Name ID Uptime
Domain0 0 4:45:02
Domain202 1 3:32:00
Domain9600 2 0:09:14
DomainR&D 3 2:21:41

5. Displaying VCPU Information

You can use xm to display domain CPU information:

xm vcpu-list [domain-id]

You must specify the which vcpus you want to list. If you do not specify, the vcpus will be dis-
played for all domains.

6. Displaying Domain Information

You can use xm to display host domain information:

xm info

36
 7. Displaying TPM Devices

The output displays:

host : redhat83-157.brisbane.redhat.com
release : 2.6..18-1.2714.el5xen
version : #1 SMP Mon Oct 21 17:57:21 EDT 2006
machine : x86_64
nr_cpus : 8
nr_nodes : 1
sockets_per_node : 2
cores_per_socket : 2
threads_per_core : 2
cpu_mhz : 2992
hw_caps : bfeebbef:20100000:00000000:00000000
total_mememory : 1022
free_memory : 68
xen_major : 3
xen_minor : 0
xen_extra : -unstable
xen_caps : xen-3.0-x86_84
xen_pagesize : 4096
platform_params : virt_start=0xffff88000000000000000000
xen_changeset : unavailable
cc_compiler : gcc compiler version 4.1.1 200060928
cc_compile_by : brewbuilder
cc_compile_domain : build.redhat.com
cc_compile_date : Mon Oct 2 17:00 EDT 2006
xend_config_format : 2

7. Displaying TPM Devices

You can use xm to display virtual TPM devices:

xm vtpm-list [domain-id] [——long]

The [——long] option provides a more detailed breakdown of the domain you specified.

8. Displaying the xend Log

You can use xm to display the contents of the xend log:

xm log

The output displays the xend log activity.

9. Displaying the Message Buffer

You can use xm to view the xend message buffer:

xm dmesg
 10. Displaying ACM State Information

The output displays the contents of the xend message buffer.

10. Displaying ACM State Information

You can use xm to display hypervisor ACM state information:

xm dumppolicy [policy.bin]

11. Displaying Vnets

You can use xm to view the virtual network devices:

xm vnet-list [ -l | ——long]

The output displays:

List Vnets
-l, ——long List Vnets as SXP

12. Displaying Virtual Block Devices

You can use xm to view the virtual block devices for a domain:

xm block-list [domain-id] [ ——long]

The output displays the block devices for the domain you specify.

13. Displaying Virtual Network Interfaces

You can use xm to view the virtual network devices for a domain:

xm network-list [domain-id] [ ——long]

The output displays the network interfaces for the domain you specify.

14. Creating a New Virtual Network Device

You can use xm to create a new virtual network device:
 xm network-attach [domain-id] [script=scriptname] [ip=ipaddr] [mac-macaddr] [bridge=bridge-name] [backen

The five parameter options are defined below:

Parameter Description

[script=scriptname] Uses the specified script name to bring up the

network

[ip=ipaddr] Passes the specified script name to the ad-

apter

[mac-macaddr] The MAC address the domain sees on its eth-

ernet device

[bridge-bridgename] The name of the device to attach the vif

[backend=bedomain-id] The back end domain id.

Table 17.4. Parameters

15. Terminating a Virtual Network Device

You can use xm to destroy an existing virtual network device:

xm network-detach [domain-id] [DevID]

This destroys the virtual network device you specify.

16. Creating a New Vnet

You can use xm to create a new Vnet:

xm vnet-create [configfile]

You must specify a configuration file to create the new Vnet.

17. Terminating a Vnet

You can use xm to destroy an existing Vnet:
 xm vnet-delete [VnetID]

This destroys the Vnet you specify.

18. Creating a Domain Security Label

You can use xm to create a domain security label:

xm addlabel [labelname] [domain-id] [configfile]

19. Testing the Domain Resources

You can use xm to test if a domain can access its resources:

xm dry-run [configfile]

This checks each resource listed in your configfile. It lists the status of each resource and the fi-
nal security decision.

20. Displaying System Resources

You can use xm to view the system Resources:

xm resources

The output displays the resources for the domains on your system.

21. Configuring Credit Scheduling

You can use xm to configure the credit scheduler parameters:

xm sched-credit -d <domain> [ -w [=WEIGHT] | -c [CAP] ]

You can configure Weight with the [ -w] option. You can configure Cap with the [ -c] option.

22. Creating a New Virtual Block Device

You can use xm to create a new virtual block device:
 23. Terminating a Virtual Block Device

xm block-attach [domain-id] [bedomain-id] [fe-dev] [be-dev] [mode]

You can attach (or detach) virtual devices even if guests are running. The five parameter op-
tions are defined below:

Parameter Description

[domain-id] The guest domain's domain-id that attaches

to the device

[be-dev] The device in the backend domain that gets

exported

[fe-dev] The device that gets presented to the guest

domain

[mode] The guest domain's device access mode

[bedomain-id] The back end domain that hosts the device

Table 17.5. New Block Device Parameters

23. Terminating a Virtual Block Device

You can use xm to destroy an existing virtual block device:

xm block-detach [domain-id] [DevID]

This destroys the virtual block device you specify.

24. Security
24.1. Removing a Domain Security Label
You can use xm to remove a domain security label:

xm rmlabel [domain-id] [configfile]

This removes the acm_policy label entry from the configfile.

41
 24.2. Creating a Resource Security Label

24.2. Creating a Resource Security Label

You can use xm to create a resource security label:

xm addlabel [labelname] res [resource] [policy]

24.3. Removing a Resource Security Label

You can use xm to remove a Resource Security label:

mx rmlabel [domain-id] res [resource]

This removes the global resource file.

24.4. Configuring Access Control

Red Hat Virtualization access control consists of two major components. The Access Control
Policy (ACP) defines access rules and security labels. When domains requests communication
access, the Access Control Module (ACM) interprets the policy and handles access control de-
cisions. The ACM determines access rights from the domain security label. Then the ACP en-
ables the security labels and access rules and assigns them to domains and resources. The
ACP uses two different ways of label management:

Label Description

Simple Type Enforcement The ACP interprets the labels and assigns ac-
cess requests to domains that require virtual
(or physical) access. The security policy con-
trols access between domains and assigns
the proper labels to the respective domain. By
default, access to domains with Simple Type
Enforcement domains is not enabled.

Chinese Wall The Chinese Wall security policy controls and

responds to access requests from a domain.

Table 17.6. ACP Label Management

A policy is a separated list of names that translates into a local path and points to the policy
XML file (relative to the global policy root directory). For instance, the domain file
chinese_wall.client_V1 pertains to the policy file /example/chinese_wall.client_v1.xml.

Red Hat Virtualization includes these parameters that allow you to manage security policies and

42
assign labels to domains:

24.5. Creating a Policy

You can use xm to create a binary policy:

xm makepolicy [policy]

This creates the binary policy and saves it as binary file [policy.bin].

24.6. Loading a Policy

You can use xm to load a binary policy:

xm loadpolicy [policy.bin]

24.7. Creating a Policy for Boot Configuration

You can use xm to make a binary policy and add it to the boot configuration file:

xm cfgbootpolicy [kernelversion]

This copies the binary policy into the /boot directory and modifies the corresponding line in the /
boot/grub/menu.1st file.

24.8. Creating a Label

You can use xm to create a label:

xm addlabel [configfile] [policy]

Adds a security label with to a domain configfile. It also verifies that the respective policy defini-
tion matches the corresponding label name.

24.9. Displaying Policy Labels

You can use xm to view policy labels:

xm labels [policy] [type=dom | res | any]

This displays labels of a type you specify (default is dom) that you define when you create the
policy.

24.10. Displaying Domain Security Labels

You can use xm to view security labels for a domain:

xm getlabel domain-id [configfile]

24.11. Displaying Resource Security Labels

You can use xm to view security labels for a resource:

xm getlabel res [resource]

24.12. Configuring Access Control Security

To enable the Red Hat Virtualization access security, you must modify these parameters in the
xen_source__dir/Config.mk

ACM_SECURITY ?= y
ACM_DEFAULT_SECURITY_POLICY ? =
ACM_CHINESE_WALL__AND_SIMPLE_TYPE_ENFORCEMENT_POLICY

24.13. Compiling a Security Policy

This example demonstrates how to successfully compile a security policy:

xm makepolicy chinesewall_ste.client_v1

This creates client_v1.map and client_v1.bin files in the /

etc/xen/acm-security/policies/example/chinesewall_ste directory.

24.14. Loading the Security Policy

You can use xm to activates the client_v1.bin :

xm loadpolicy example.chwall_ste.client_v1
 24.16. Displaying Security Labels

24.15. Configuring a Boot Security Policy

You can use xm to configure the boot loader to load client_v1.bin :

xm cfgbootpolicy chinesewall_ste.client_v1

This causes the ACM to use this label to boot Red Hat Virtualization.

24.16. Displaying Security Labels

You can use xm to view the defined labels:

xm labels chinesewall_ste.client_v1 type=dom

The output displays all policies with dom:

dom_StorageDomain
dom_SystemManagement
dom_NetworkDomain
dom_QandA
dom_R&D

24.17. Attaching a Security Label

You can use xm to attach a security label to a domain configuration file (this example uses the
SoftwareDev label):

xm addlabel myconfig.xm dom_SoftwareDev

Attaching the security label ensures that the domain does not share data with other non-Soft-
wareDev user domains. This example includes the myconfig.xm configuration file represents a
domain that runs workloads related to the SoftwareDev's infrastructure.

Edit your respective configuration file and verify that the addlabel command correctly added the
access_control entry (and associated parameters) to the end of the file:

kernel = "/boot/vmlinuz — 2.6.16 —xen"

ramdisk="/boot/U1_SoftwareDev_ramdisk.img"
memory = 164
name = "SoftwareDev"
vif = [ '' ]
dhcp = "dhcp"
access_control = [policy=example.chwall_ste.client_v1, label=dom_SoftwareDev]
 24.17. Attaching a Security Label

If anything does not appear correct, make the necessary modifications and save the file.
 Chapter 18. Managing Virtual
Machines with Virtual Machine
Manager
This section describes the Red Hat Virtualization Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) windows, dia-
log boxes, and various GUI controls.

1. Virtual Machine Manager Architecture

Red Hat Virtualization is a collection of software components that work together to host and
manage virtual machines. The Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) gives you a graphical view of
the virtual machines on your system. You can use VMM to define both para-virtual and full virtu-
al machines. Using Virtual Machine Manager, you can perform any number of virtualization
management tasks including assigning memory, assigning virtual CPUs, monitoring operational
performance, and save, restore, pause, resume, and shutdown virtual systems. It also allows
you to access the textual and graphical console. Red Hat Virtualization abstracts CPU and
memory resources from the underlying hardware and network configurations. This enables pro-
cessing resources to be pooled and dynamically assigned to applications and service requests.
Chip-level virtualization enables operating systems with Intel VT and AMD Pacifica hardware to
run on hypervisors.

2. The Open Connection Window

This window appears first and prompts the user to choose a hypervisor session. Non-privileged
users can initiate a read-only session. Root users can start a session with full blown read-write
status. For normal use, select the Local Xen host option. You start the Virtual Machine Man-
ager test mode by selecting the Other hypervisor and then type test:///default in the URL
field beneath. Once in test mode, you can connect to a libvirt dummy hypervisor. Note that al-
though the Remote Xen host screen is visible, the functionality to connect to such a host is not
implemented into RHEL 5.0.

47
 3. Virtual Machine Manager Window

Figure 18.1. Virtual Machine Manager Connection window

3. Virtual Machine Manager Window

This main window displays all the running virtual machines and resources currently allocated to
them (including domain0). You can decide which fields to display. Double-clicking on the de-
sired virtual machine brings up the respective console for that particular machine. Selecting a
virtual machine and double-click the Details button to display the Details window for that ma-
chine. You can also access the File menu to create a new virtual machine.

Figure 18.2. Virtual Machine Manager main window

4. Virtual Machine Details Window

48
 5. Virtual Machine Graphical Console

This window displays graphs and statistics of a guest's live resource utilization data available
from the Red Hat Virtualization Virtual Machine Manager. The UUID field displays the globally
unique identifier for the virtual machines(s).

Figure 18.3. Virtual Machine Manager Details window

5. Virtual Machine Graphical Console

This window displays a virtual machine's graphical console. Paravirtual and full virtual machines
use different techniques to export their local virtual framebuffers, but both technologies use
VNC to make them available to the Virtual Machine Manager's console window. If your virtual
machine is set to require authentication, the Virtual Machine Graphical console prompts you for
a password before the display appears.

49
Figure 18.4. Graphical Console window

Your local desktop can intercept key combinations (for example, Ctrl+Alt+F11) to prevent them
from being sent to the guest machine. You can use the Virtual Machine Manager's 'sticky key'
capability to send these sequences. You must press any modifier key (like Ctrl or Alt) 3 times
and the key you specify gets treated as active until the next non-modifier key is pressed. Then
you can send Ctrl-Alt-F11 to the guest by entering the key sequence 'Ctrl Ctrl Ctrl Alt+F1'.

6. Starting the Virtual Machine Manager

To start the Virtual Machine Manager session, from the Applications menu, click System Tools
and select Virtual Machine Manager .

The Virtual Machine Manager main window appears.

Figure 18.5. Starting the Virtual Machine Manager

7. Creating a New Virtual Machine

The Virtual Machine Manager (virt-manager) is the desktop application that manages virtual
machines.

You can use Red Hat's Virtual Machine Manager to:

• Create new domains.

• Configure or adjust a domain's resource allocation and virtual hardware.

• Summarize running domains with live performance and resource utilization statistics.

• Display graphs that show performance and resource utilization over time.

• Use the embedded VNC client viewer which presents a full graphical console to the guest
domain.

Note:
You must install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0, virt-manager, and the kernel
packages on all systems that require virtualization. All systems then must be
booted and running the Red Hat Virtualization kernel.

These are the steps required to install a guest operating system on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
using the Virtual Machine Monitor:

Procedure 18.1. Creating a Guest Operating System

1. From the Applications menu, select System Tools and then Virtual Machine Manager.

The Virtual Machine Manager main window appears.

 7. Creating a New Virtual Machine

Figure 18.6. Virtual Machine Manager window

2. From the File menu, select New machine.

Figure 18.7. Selecting a New Machine

The Creating a new virtual system wizard appears.

3. Click Forward.
 7. Creating a New Virtual Machine

Figure 18.8. Creating a New Virtual System Wizard

4. Enter the name of the new virtual system and then click Forward.
 Figure 18.9. Naming the Virtual System

5. Enter the location of your install media. Location of the kickstart file is optional. Then click
Forward .

54
 Figure 18.10. Locating the Installation Media

6. Install either to a physical disk partition or install to a virtual file system within a file.

Note
This example installs a virtual system within a file.

The default SELinux policy permits xen disk images to reside in the /var/lib/xen .
If you have SELinux enabled and want to specify a custom path for the virtual
disk then you need to change SELinux policies accordingly

Open a terminal and create the /xen directory and set the SELinux policy with the command
restorecon -v /xen. Specify your location and the size of the virtual disk, then click For-
ward.

55
 7. Creating a New Virtual Machine

Figure 18.11. Assigning the Storage Space

7. Select memory to allocate the guest and the number of virtual CPUs then click Forward.
 7. Creating a New Virtual Machine

Figure 18.12. Allocating Memory and CPU

8. Select Forward to open a console and the files start to install.

 Figure 18.13. Allocating Memory and CPU

9. Complete your installation in the window provided.

 Figure 18.14. Installation Begins...

10. Type xm create -c xen-guest to start the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 guest. Right click on
the guest in the Virtual Machine Manager and choose Open to open a virtual console.
 8. Restoring A Saved Machine

Figure 18.15. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 (guest)

11. Enter user name and password to continue using the Virtual Machine Manager.

8. Restoring A Saved Machine

After you start the Virtual Machine Manager, all virtual machines on your system are displayed
in the main window. Domain0 is your host system. If there are no machines present, this means
that currently there are no machines running on the system.

To restore a previously saved session:

1. From the File menu, select Restore a saved machine.

60
 8. Restoring A Saved Machine

Figure 18.16. Restoring a Virtual Machine

2. The Restore Virtual Machine main window appears.

Figure 18.17. Selecting Saved Virtual Machine Session

3. Navigate to correct directory and select the saved session file.

4. Click Open.

The saved virtual system appears in the Virtual Machine Manager main window.

61
Figure 18.18. The Restored Virtual Machine Manager Session

9. Displaying Virtual Machine Details

You can use the Virtual Machine Monitor to view activity data information for any virtual ma-
chines on your system.

To view a virtual system's details:

1. In the Virtual Machine Manager main window, highlight the virtual machine that you want to
view.

Figure 18.19. Selecting Virtual Machine to Display

2. From the Virtual Machine Manager Edit menu, select Machine Details (or click the Details
button on the bottom of the Virtual Machine Manager main window).
 Figure 18.20. Displaying Virtual Machine Details Menu

The Virtual Machine Details Overview window appears. This window summarizes CPU and
memory usage for the domain(s) you specified.

Figure 18.21. Displaying Virtual Machine Details Overview

3. On the Virtual Machine Details window, click the Hardware tab.

The Virtual Machine Details Hardware window appears.

 9. Displaying Virtual Machine Details

Figure 18.22. Displaying Virtual Machine Details Hardware

4. On the Hardware tab, click on Processor to view or change the current processor memory
allocation.

Figure 18.23. Displaying Processor Allocation

5. On the Hardware tab, click on Memory to view or change the current RAM memory alloca-
tion.

Figure 18.24. Displaying Memory Allocation

6. On the Hardware tab, click on Disk to view or change the current hard disk configuration.
 10. Configuring Status Monitoring

Figure 18.25. Displaying Disk Configuration

7. On the Hardware tab, click on Network to view or change the current network configura-
tion.

Figure 18.26. Displaying Network Configuration

10. Configuring Status Monitoring

You can use the Virtual Machine Manager to modify the virtual system Status monitoring.

To configure Status monitoring, and enable Consoles:

1. From the Edit menu, select Preferences.

Figure 18.27. Modifying Virtual Machine Preferences

The Virtual Machine Manager Preferences window appears.

2. From the Status monitoring area selection box, specify the time (in seconds) that you want
the system to update.

Figure 18.28. Configuring Status Monitoring

3. From the Consoles area, specify how to open a console and specify an input device.

11. Displaying Domain ID

66
To view the domain IDs for all virtual machines on your system:

1. From the View menu, select the Domain ID check box.

Figure 18.29. Displaying Domain-IDs

2. The Virtual Machine Manager lists the Domain ID's for all domains on your system.

67
 12. Displaying Virtual Machine Status

Figure 18.30. Displaying Domain-IDs

12. Displaying Virtual Machine Status

To view the status of all virtual machines on your system:

1. From the View menu, select the Status check box.

Figure 18.31. Displaying Virtual Machine Status

2. The Virtual Machine Manager lists the status of all virtual machines on your system.
 13. Displaying Virtual CPUs

Figure 18.32. Displaying Virtual Machine Status

13. Displaying Virtual CPUs

To view the amount of virtual CPUs for all virtual machines on your system:

1. From the View menu, select the Virtual CPUs check box.
 Figure 18.33. Displaying Virtual CPUs

2. The Virtual Machine Manager lists the Virtual CPUs for all virtual machines on your system.

Figure 18.34. Displaying Virtual CPUs

14. Displaying CPU Usage

To view the CPU usage for all virtual machines on your system:

1. From the View menu, select the CPU Usage check box.
 Figure 18.35. Displaying CPU Usage

2. The Virtual Machine Manager lists the percentage of CPU in use for all virtual machines on
your system.

Figure 18.36. Displaying CPU Usage

 15. Displaying Memory Usage

15. Displaying Memory Usage

To view the memory usage for all virtual machines on your system:

1. From the View menu, select the Memory Usage check box.

Figure 18.37. Displaying Memory Usage

2. The Virtual Machine Manager lists the percentage of memory in use (in megabytes) for all
virtual machines on your system.

72
 15. Displaying Memory Usage

Figure 18.38. Displaying Memory Usage

73
 Chapter 19. Red Hat Virtualization
Troubleshooting
This section covers potential issues you may experience in the installation, management, and
general day-to-day operations of your Red Hat Virtualization system(s). This troubleshooting
section covers the error messages, log file locations, system tools, and general approaches to
research data and analyze problems.

1. Logfile Overview and Locations

When deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 with Virtualization into your network infrastruc-
ture, the host's Virtualization software uses many specific directories for important configuration,
log files, and other utilities. All the Red Hat Virtualization logs files are standard ASCII files, and
easily accessable with any ASCII based editor:

• The Red Hat Virtualization main configuration directory is /etc/xen/. This directory contains
the xend daemon and other virtual machine configuration files. The networking script files
reside here as well (in the /scripts subdirectory).

• All of actual log files themselves that you will consult for troubleshooting purposes reside in
the /var/log/xen directory.

• You should also know that the default directory for all virtual machine file-based disk images
resides in the /var/lib/xen directory.

• Red Hat Virtualization information for the /proc file system reside in the /proc/xen/ direct-
ory.

2. Logfile Descriptions
Red Hat Virtualization features the xend daemon and qemu-dm process, two utilities that write
the multiple log files to the /var/log/xen/ directory:

• xend.log is the logfile that contains all the data collected by the xend daemon, whether it is a
normal system event, or an operator initiated action. All virtual machine operations (such as
create, shutdown, destroy, etc.) appears here. The xend.log is usually the first place to look
when you track down event or performance problems. It contains detailed entries and condi-
tions of the error messages.

• xend-debug.log is the logfile that contains records of event errors from xend and the Virtualiz-
ation subsystems (such as framebuffer, Python scripts, etc.).

• xen-hotplug-log is the logfile that contains data from hotplug events. If a device or a network
script does not come online, the event appears here.

• qemu-dm.[PID].log is the logfile created by the qemu-dm process for each fully virtualized

74
 3. Important Directory Locations

guest. When using this logfile, you must retrieve the given qemu-dm process PID, by using
the ps command to examine process arguments to isolate the qemu-dm process on the virtual
machine. Note that you must replace the [PID] symbol with the actual PID qemu-dm process.

If you encounter any errors with the Virtual Machine Manager, you can review the generated
data in the virt-manager.log file that resides in the /.virt-manager directory. Note that every
time you start the Virtual Machine Manager, it overwrites the existing logfile contents. Make sure
to backup the virt-manager.log file, before you restart the Virtual Machine manager after a sys-
tem error.

3. Important Directory Locations

There are additional utilities and logfiles you should remember when you track errors and
troubleshoot problems within Red Hat Virtualization environments:

• Virtual machines images reside in the /var/lib/xen/images directory.

• When you restart the xend daemon, it updates the xend-database that resides in the /
var/lib/xen/xend-db directory.

• Virtual machine dumps (that you perform with xm dump-core command) resides in the /
var/lib/xen/dumps directory.

• The /etc/xen directory contains the configuration files that you use to manage system re-
sources. The xend daemon configuration file is called xend-config.sxp and you can use this
file to implement system-wide changes and configure the networking callouts.

• The proc commands are another resource that allows you to gather system information.
These proc entries reside in the /proc/xen directory:

/proc/xen/capabilities

/proc/xen/balloon

/proc/xen/xenbus/

4. Troubleshooting Tools
This section summarizes the System Administrator applications, the networking utilities, and the
Advanced Debugging Tools (for more information on using these tools to configure the Red Hat
Virtualization services, see the respective configuration documentation). You can employ these
standard System Administrator Tools and logs to assist with troubleshooting:

• xentop

• xm dmesg

• xm log

75
 4. Troubleshooting Tools

• vmstat

• iostat

• lsof

You can employ these Advanced Debugging Tools and logs to assist with troubleshooting:

• XenOprofile

• systemTap

• crash

• sysrq

• sysrq t

• sysrq w

You can employ these Networking Tools to assist with troubleshooting:

• ifconfig

• tcpdump

• brtctl

brctl is a networking tool that inspects and configures the ethernet bridge configuration in the
Virtualization linux kernel. You must have root access before performing these example com-
mands:

# brctl show

bridge-name bridge-id STP enabled interfaces

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
xenbr0 8000.feffffff no vif13.0
xenbr1 8000.ffffefff yes pddummy0
xenbr2 8000.ffffffef no vif0.0

# btcrl showmacs xenbr0

port-no mac-addr local? ageing timer

1 fe:ff:ff:ff:ff: yes 0.00

2 fe:ff:ff:fe:ff: yes 0.00

# btcrl showstp xenbr0

xenbr0

bridge-id 8000.fefffffffff

designated-root 8000.fefffffffff

root-port 0 path-cost 0

max-age 20.00 bridge-max-age 20.00

76
 hello-time 2.00 bridge-hello-time 2.00

forward-delay 0.00 bridge-forward-delay 0.00

ageing-time 300.01

hello-timer 1.43 tcn-timer 0.00

topology-change-timer 0.00 gc-timer 0.02

5. Troubleshooting with the Logs

When encountering issues with installing Red Hat Virtualization, you can refer to the host sys-
tem's two logs to assist with troubleshooting. The xend.log file contains the same basic inform-
ation as when you run the xm log command. It resides in the /var/log/ directory. Here is an ex-
ample log entry for when you create a domain running a kernel:

[2006-12-27 02:23:02 xend] ERROR (SrvBase: 163) op=create: Error creating domain: (0, 'Error')
Traceback (most recent call list)
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/xen/xend/server/SrvBase.py" line 107 in_perform val = op_method (
File
"/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/xen/xend/server/SrvDomainDir.py line 71 in op_create
raise XendError ("Error creating domain: " + str(ex))
XendError: Error creating domain: (0, 'Error')

The other log file, xend-debug.log , is very useful to system administrators since it contains
even more detailed information than xend.log . Here is the same error data for the same kernel
domain creation problem:

ERROR: Will only load images built for Xen v3.0

ERROR: Actually saw: GUEST_OS=netbsd, GUEST_VER=2.0, XEN_VER=2.0; LOADER=generic, BSD_SYMTAB'
ERROR: Error constructing guest OS

When calling customer support, always include a copy of both these log files when contacting
the technical support staff.

6. Troubleshooting with the Serial Console

The serial console is helpful in troubleshooting difficult problems. If the Virtualization kernel
crashes and the hypervisor generates an error, there is no way to track the error on a local host.
However, the serial console allows you to capture it on a remote host. You must configure the
Xen host to output data to the serial console. Then you must configure the remote host to cap-
ture the data. To do this, you must modify these options in the grub.conf file to enable a
38400-bps serial console on com1 /dev/ttyS0:

title Red Hat Enterprise Linix (2.6.18-8.2080_RHEL5xen0)

root (hd0,2)
 kernel /xen.gz-2.6.18-8.el5 com1=38400,8n1
module /vmlinuz-2.618-8.el5xen ro root=LABEL=/rhgb quiet console=xvc console=tty xencons
module /initrd-2.6.18-8.el5xen.img

The sync_console can help determine a problem that causes hangs with asynchronous hyper-
visor console output, and the "pnpacpi=off" works around a problem that breaks input on the
serial console. The parameters "console=ttyS0" and "console=tty" means that kernel errors
get logged with on both the normal VGA console and on the serial console. Then you can install
and set up ttywatch to capture the data on a remote host connected by a standard null-modem
cable. For example, on the remote host you could type:

ttywatch --name myhost --port /dev/ttyS0

This pipes the output from /dev/ttyS0 into the file /var/log/ttywatch/myhost.log .

7. Paravirtualized Guest Console Access

Paravirtualized guest operating systems automatically has a virtual text console configured to
plumb data to the Domain0 operating system. You can do this from the command line by typing:

xm console [domain name or number]

Where domain100 represents a running name or number. You can also use the Virtual Machine
Manager to display the virtual text console. On the Virtual Machine Details window, select Serial
Console from the View menu.

8. Full Virtualization Guest Console Access

Full Virtualized guest operating systems automatically has a text console configured for use, but
the difference is the kernel guest is not configured. To enable the guest virtual serial console to
work with the Full Virtualized guest, you must modify the guest's grub.conf file, and include the
'console =ttyS0 console=tty0' parameter. This ensures that the kernel messages are sent to
the virtual serial console (and the normal graphical console). If you plan to use the virtual serial
console in a full virtualized guest, you must edit the configuration file in the /etc/xen/ directory.
On the host domain, you can then access the text console by typing:

xm console

You can also use the Virtual Machine Manager to display the serial console. On the Virtual Ma-
chine Details window, select Serial Console from the View menu.

9. Implementing Lun Persistence

 9. Implementing Lun Persistence

If your system is not using multipath, you can use udev to implement lun persistence. Before im-
plementing lun persistence in your system, ensure that you acquire the proper UUIDs. Once you
aquire these, you can configure lun persistence by editing the scsi_id file that resides in the /
etc directory. Once you have this file open in a text editor, you must comment out this line:

# options=-b

Then replace it with this parameter:

# options=-g

This tells udev to monitor all system SCSI devices for returning UUIDs. To determine the sys-
tem UUIDs, type:

# scsi_id -g -s /block/sdc

The output should resemble the following:

[root@devices] # scsi_id -g -s /block/sdc

*3600a0b80001327510000015427b625e*

This long string of characters is the UUID. To get the device names to key off the UUID, check
each device path to ensure that the UUID number is the same for each device. The UUIDs do
not change when you add a new device to your system. Once you have checked the device
paths, you must create rules for the device naming. To create these rules, you must edit the
20-names.rules file that resides in the /etc/udev/rules.d directory. The device naming rules
you create here should follow this format:

# KERNEL="sd*", BUS="scsi", PROGRAM="sbin/scsi_id", RESULT="UUID", NAME="devicename"

Replace your exisiting UUID and devicename with the above UUID retrieved entry. So the rule
should resemble the following:

KERNEL="sd*", BUS="scsi", PROGRAM="sbin/scsi_id", RESULT="3600a0b80001327510000015427b625e

", NAME="mydevicename"

This causes the system to enable all devices that match /dev/sd* to inspect the given UUID.
When it finds a matching device, it creates a device node called /dev/devicename. For this ex-
 10. SELinux Considerations

ample, the device node is /dev/mydevice . Finally, you need to append the rc.local file that
resides in the /etc directory with this path:

/sbin/start_udev

IMPLEMENTING LUN PERSISTENCE WITH MULTIPATH

To implement lun persistence in a multipath environment, you must define the alias names for
the multipath devices. For this example, you must define four device aliases by editing the mul-
tipath.conf file that resides in the /etc/ directory:

multipath {
wwid 3600a0b80001327510000015427b625e
alias oramp1
}
multipath {
wwid 3600a0b80001327510000015427b6
alias oramp2
}
multipath {
wwid 3600a0b80001327510000015427b625e
alias oramp3
}
multipath {
wwid 3600a0b80001327510000015427b625e
alias oramp4
}

This defines 4 luns: /dev/mpath/oramp1, /dev/mpath/oramp2, /dev/mpath/oramp3, and dev/

mpath/oramp4. The devices will reside in the /dev/mpath directory. These lun names are persist-
ent over reboots as it creates the alias names on the wwid of the luns.

10. SELinux Considerations

This sections contains things to you must consider when you implement SELinux into your Red
Hat Virtualization environment. When you deploy system changes or add devices, you must up-
date your SELinux policy accordingly. To configure an LVM volume for a guest, you must modify
the SELinux context for the respective underlying block device and volume group.

# semanage fcontext -a -t xen_image _t -f -b /dev/sda2

# restorecon /dev/sda2

The boolean parameter xend_disable_trans put xend in unconfined mode after restarting the
daemon. It is better to disable protection for a single daemon than the whole system. It is advis-
able that you should not re-label directories as xen_image_t that you will use elsewhere.

11. Accessing Data on Guest Disk Image

You can use two separate applications that assist you in accessing data from within a guest
disk image. Before using these tools, you must shut down the guests. Accessing the file system
from the guest and dom0 could potentially harm your system.

You can use the kpartx application to handle partitioned disks or LVM volume groups:

yum install kpartx

kpartx -av /dev/xen/guest1
add map guest1p1 : 0 208782 linear /dev/xen/guest1 63
add map guest1p2: 0 16563015 linear /dev/xen/guest1 208845

To access LVM volumes on a second partiton, you must rescan LVM with vgscan and activate
the volume group on the partition (called VolGroup00 by default) by using the vgchange -ay
command:

# kpartx -a /dev/xen/guest1
#vgscan
Reading all physical volumes . This may take a while...
Found volume group "VolGroup00" using metadata type 1vm2
# vgchange -ay VolGroup00now
2 logical volume(s) in volume group VolGroup00 now active.
# lvs
LV VG Attr Lsize Origin Snap% Move Log Copy%
LogVol00 VolGroup00 -wi-a- 5.06G
LogVol01 VolGroup00 -wi-a- 800.00M
# mount /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 /mnt/
....
#umount /mnt/
#vchange -an VolGroup00
#kpartx -d /dev/xen/guest1

You must remember to deactivate the logical volumes with vgchange -an, remove the partitions
with kpartx-d , and delete the loop device with losetup -d when you finish.

12. Common Troubleshooting Situations

When you attempt to start the xend service nothing happens. You type xm list1 and receive
the following:

Error: Error connecting to xend: Connection refused. Is xend running?

You try to run xend start manually and receive more errors:

Error: Could not obtain handle on privileged command interfaces (2 = No such file or directory)
Traceback (most recent call last:)

File "/usr/sbin/xend/", line 33 in ?

from xen.xend.server. import SrvDaemon

81
 File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/xen/xend/server/SrvDaemon.py" , line 26 in ?

from xen.xend import XendDomain

File "/usr//lib/python2.4/site-packages/xen/xend/XendDomain.py" , line 33, in ?

from xen.xend import XendDomainInfo

File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/xen/xend/image.py" , line37, in ?

import images

File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/xen/xend/image.py" , line30, in ?

xc = xen.lowlevel.xc.xc ()

RuntimeError: (2, 'No such file or directory' )

What is most likely happened here is that you rebooted your host into a kernel that is not a xen-
hypervisor kernel. To correct this, you must select the xen-hypervisor kernel at boot time (or
set the xen-hypervisor kernel to default in your grub.conf file.

13. Loop Device Errors

If you use file-based guest images, one may have increased the number of configured loop
devices (the default allows up to 8 loop devices to become active). If you need more than 8 file-
based guests/loop devices, you must modify the /etc/modprobe.conf file. When modifying the
modprobe.conf file, you must include this line:

options loop max_loop=64

This example uses 64 but you can specify another number to set the maximum loop value. You
may also have to implement loop device backed guests on your system. To employ loop device
backed guests for a paravirtual system, use the phy: block device or tap:aio commands. To
employ loop device backed guests for a full virtualized system, use the phy: device or file:
file commands.

14. Guest Creation Errors

When you attempt to create a guest, you receive an "Invalid argument" error message. This
usually means that the kernel image you are trying to boot is incompatible with the hypervisor.
An example of this would be if you were attempting to run a non-PAE FC5 kernel on a PAE only
FC6 hypervisor.

You do a yum update and receive a new kernel, the grub.conf default kernel switches right back
to a bare-metal kernel instead of the Virtualization kernel.

To correct this problem you must modify the default kernel RPM that resides in the /
etc/sysconfig/kernel/ directory. You must ensure that kernel-xen parameter is set as the de-
fault option in your gb.conf file.

82
 15. Serial Console Errors

15. Serial Console Errors

You receive no output to the serial console. To correct this problem, you must modify the
grub.conf and change the com port parameters to:

serial --unit=1 --speed=115200

title RHEL5 i386 Xen (2.6.18-1.2910.el5xen)

root (hd0, 8)
kernel /boot/xen.gz-2.6.18-1.2910.el5 com2=115200, 8n1
module /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2910.el5xen to root=LABEL=RHEL5_i386 console=tty console=ttyS1115200
module /boot/initrd-2.8.6.18-12910.el5xen.img

title RHEL5 i386 xen (2.6.18.-1.2910.el5xen

root (hd0, 8)
kernel /boot/xen.gz-2.6.18-1.2910.el5 com2=115200 console=com2l
module /boot/vmlinuz2.6.18-1.2910.el5xen to root=LABEL=RHEL5_i386 console=xvc xencons=xvc
module /boot/ititrd-2.6.18-1.2910.el5xen.img

These changes to the grub.conf should enable your serial console to work correctly. You
should be able to use any number for the ttyS and it should work like ttyS0 .

16. Network Bridge Errors

Red Hat Virtualization can configure multiple Virtualization network bridges to use with multiple
ethernet cards. To successfully configure multiple network bridges for ethernet cards, you must
configure the second network interface by either using the system-config-network TUI/GUI, or
by creating a new configuration file in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts . You should use a pro-
cess to setup multiple Xen bridges. This is an example config file for a second NIC called 'eth1'
:

#/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/fcfg-eth1
DEVICE=eth1
BOOTPROTO=static
ONBOOT=yes
USERCTL=no
IPV6INIT=no
PEERDNS=yes
TYPE=Ethernet
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
IPADDR=10.1.1.1
GATEWAY=10.1.1.254
ARP=yes

Copy the /etc/xen/scripts/network-bridge to /etc/xen/scripts/network-bridge.xen .

Edit /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp and add a line to your new network bridge script (this example
uses "network-virtualization-multi-bridge" ).
 17. Laptop Configurations

In the xend-config.sxp file, the new line should reflect your new script:

network-script network-xen-multi-bridge

Make sure to uncomment the line that states:

network-script network-bridge

If you want to create multiple Xen bridges, you must create a custom script. This example below
creates two Xen bridges (called xenbr0 and xenbr1 ) and attaches them to eth1 and eth0 , re-
spectively:

# !/bin/sh
# network-xen-multi-bridge
# Exit if anything goes wrong
set -e
# First arg is operation.
OP=$1
shift
script=/etc/xen/scripts/network-bridge.xen
case ${op} in
start)
$script start vifnum=1 bridge=xenbr1 netdev=eth1
$script start vifnum=0 bridge=xenbr0 netdev=eth0
..
,,
stop)
$script stop vifnum=1 bridge=xenbr1 netdev=eth1
$script stop vifnum=0 bridge=xenbr0 netdev=eth0
..
,,
status)
$script status vifnum=1 bridge=xenbr1 netdev=eth1
$script status vifnum=0 bridge=xenbr0 netdev=eth0
..
,,
*)
echo 'Unknown command: ' ${OP}
echo 'Valid commands are: start, stop, status'
exit 1
esac

If you want to create additional bridges, just use the example script and copy/paste the file ac-
cordingly.

17. Laptop Configurations

The task of configuring your RHEL 5.0 loaded laptop for use on a network environment,
presents a number of potential challenges. Most WiFi and wired connections switch constantly
during any given day, and Red Hat Virtualization assumes it has access to the same interface
consistently. This results in the system performing ifup/ifdown calls to the network interface in
use by Red Hat Virtualization. WiFi cards are not the ideal network connection method since
Red Hat Virtualization uses the default network interface.

The idea here is to create a 'dummy' network interface for Red Hat Virtualization to use.

This technique allows you to use a hidden IP address space for your guests and Virtual Ma-
chines. To do this operation successfully, you must use static IP addresses as DHCP does not
listen for IP addresses on the dummy network. You also must configure NAT/IP masquerading
to enable network access for your guests and Virtual Machines. You should attach a static IP
when you create the 'dummy' network interface.

For this example, the interface is called dummy0 and the IP used is 10.1.1.1 The script is called
ifcfg-dummy0 and resides in the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ directory:

DEVICE =dummy0
BOOTPROTO=none
ONBOOT=yes
USERCTL=no
IPV6INIT=no
PEERDNS=yes
TYPE=Ethernet
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
IPADDR=10.1.1.1
ARP=yes

You should bind xenbr0 to dummy0 to allow network connection even when disconnected from
the physical network.

You will need to make additional modifications to the xend-config.sxp file. You must locate the (
network-script 'network-bridge' bridge=xenbr0 ) section and add include this in the end of the
line:

netdev=dummy0

You must also make some modifications to your guest's domU networking configuration to en-
able the default gateway to point to dummy0. You must edit the DomU 'network' file that resides
in the /etc/sysconfig/ directory to reflect the example below:

NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=localhost.localdomain
GATEWAY=10.1.1.1

IPADDR=10.1.1.10
NETMASK=255.255.255.0

It is a good idea to enable NAT in domain0 so that domU can access the public net. This way,
even wireless users can work around the Red Hat Virtualization wireless limitations. To do this,
you must modify the S99XenLaptopNAT file that resides in the /etc/rc3.d directory to reflect the
example below:

#!/bin/bash/
PATH=/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr:/sbin
export PATH
GATEWAYDEV= "ip route | grep default | awk {print $5'}'
iptables -F
case "$1" in
start)
if test -z "$GATEWAYDEV"; then
echo "No gateway device found"
else
echo "Masquerading using $GATEWAYDEV"
/sbin/iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o $GATEWAYDEV -j
MASQUERADE
fi
echo "Enabling IP forwarding"
echo 1 . /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
echo "IP forwarding set to 'cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward'"
echo "done"
..
''
*)
echo "Usage: $0 {start | restart | status}"
..
,,
esac

If you want to automatically have the network setup at boot time, you must create a softlink to /
etc/rc3.d/S99XenLaptopNAT

When modifying the modprobe.conf file, you must include these lines:

alias dummy0 dummy

options dummy numdummies=1

18. Starting Domains Automatically During System

Boot
Starting Domains Automatically During System Boot

You can configure your guests to start automatically when you boot the system. To do this, you
must modify the symbolic links that resides in /etc/xen/auto . This file points to the guest con-
figuration files that you need to start automatically. The startup process is serialized, meaning
that the higher the number of guests, the longer the boot process will take. This example shows
you how to use symbolic links for the guest rhel5vm01 :

[root@python xen]# cd /etc/xen

[root@python xen]# cd auto
[root@python auto]# ls
[root@python auto]# ln -s ../rhel5vm01 .
[root@python auto]# ls -l

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 Dec 14 10:02 rhel5vm01 -> ../rhel5vm01

 19. Modifying Domain0

[root@python auto]#

19. Modifying Domain0

To use Red Hat Virtualization to manage domain0, you will constantly making changes to the
grub.conf configuration file, that resides in the /etc directory. Because of the large number of
domains to manage, many system administrators prefer to use the 'cut and paste' method when
editing grub.conf . If you do this, make sure that you include all five lines in the Virtualization
entry (or this will create system errors). If you require Xen hypervisor specific values, you must
add them to the 'xen' line. This example represents a correct grub.conf Virtualization entry:

# boot=/dev/sda/
default=0
timeout=15
#splashimage=(hd0, 0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
serial --unit=0 --speed=115200 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1
terminal --timeout=10 serial console
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (2.6.17-1.2519.4.21. el5xen)
root (hd0, 0)
kernel /xen.gz-2.6.17-1.2519.4.21.el5 com1=115200, 8n1
module /vmlinuz-2.6.17-1.2519.4.21el5xen ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
module /initrd-2.6.17-1.2519.4.21.el5xen.img

For example, if you need to change your dom0 hypervisor's memory to 256MB at boot time, you
must edit the 'xen' line and append it with the correct entry, 'dom0_mem=256M' . This example
represents the respective grub.conf xen entry:

# boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=15
#splashimage=(hd0,0)/grubs/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
serial --unit=0 --speed =115200 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1
terminal --timeout=10 serial console
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (2.6.17-1.2519.4.21. el5xen)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /xen.gz-2.6.17-1.2519.4.21.el5 com1=115200, 8n1 dom0_mem=256MB
module /vmlinuz-2.6.17-1.2519.4.21.el5xen ro
root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
module /initrd-2.6.17-1.2519.4.21.el5xen.img

20. Guest Configuration Files

When you install new guests using virt-manager (or virt-install) tool(s) from Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 5.0 with Virtualization, the guests configuration files (located in the /etc/xen directory) get
modified and setup automatically. This configuration file example is for a para-virtualized guest:

87
 21. Cloning the Guest Configuration Files

name = "rhel5vm01"
memory = "2048"
disk = ['tap:aio:/xen/images/rhel5vm01.dsk,xvda,w',]
vif = ["type=ieomu, mac=00:16:3e:09:f0:12 bridge=xenbr0',
"type=ieomu, mac=00:16:3e:09:f0:13 ]
vnc = 1
vncunused = 1
uuid = "302bd9ce-4f60-fc67-9e40-7a77d9b4e1ed"
bootloader = "/usr/bin/pygrub"
vcpus=2
on_reboot = "restart"
on_crash = "restart"

Note that the serial="pty" is the default for the configuration file. This configuration file ex-
ample is for a fully-virtualized guest:

name = "rhel5u5-86_64"
builder = "hvm"
memory = 500
disk = ['file:/xen/images/rhel5u5-x86_64.dsk.hda,w [../../../home/mhideo/.evolution//xen/images/rhel5u5-
vif = [ 'type=ioemu, mac=00:16:3e:09:f0:12, bridge=xenbr0', 'type=ieomu, mac=00:16:3e:09:f0:13, bridge=x
uuid = "b10372f9-91d7-ao5f-12ff-372100c99af5'
device_model = "/usr/lib64/xen/bin/qemu-dm"
kernel = "/usr/lib/xen/boot/hvmloader/"
vnc = 1
vncunused = 1
apic = 1
acpi = 1
pae = 1
vcpus =1
serial ="pty" # enable serial console
on_boot = 'restart'

21. Cloning the Guest Configuration Files

You can copy (or clone) an existing configuration file to create an all new guest. You must modi-
fy the name parameter of the guests' configuration file. The new, unique name then appears in
the hypervisor and is viewable by the management utilities. You must generate an all new UUID
as well (using the uuidgen(1) command). Then for the vif entries you must define a unique
MAC address for each guest (if you are copying a guest configuration from an existing guest,
you can create a script to handle it). For the xen bridge information, if you move an existing
guest configuration file to a new host, you must update the xenbr entry to match your local net-
working configuration. For the Device entries, you must modify the entries in the 'disk=' sec-
tion to point to the correct guest image.

You must also modify these system configuration settings on your guest. You must modify the
HOSTNAME entry of the /etc/sysconfig/network file to match the new guest's hostname.

You must modify the HWADDR address of the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file

to match the output from ifconfig eth0 file and if you use static IP addresses, you must modify
the IPADDR entry.

22. Creating a Script to Generate MAC Addresses

88
Red Hat Virtualization can generate a MAC address for each virtual machine at the time of cre-
ation. Since is a nearly unlimited amount of numbers on the same subnet, it is unlikely you could
get the same MAC address. To work around this, you can also write a script to generate a MAC
address. This example script contains the parameters to generate a MAC address:

#! /usr/bin/python
# macgen.py script generates a MAC address for Xen guests
#
import random
mac = [ 0x00, 0x16, 0x3e,
random.randint(0x00, 0x7f),
random.randint(0x00, 0xff),
random.randint(0x00, 0xff) ]
print ':'.join(map(lambda x: "%02x" % x, mac))

Generates e.g.:
00:16:3e:66:f5:77
to stdout

23. Configuring Virtual Machine Live Migration

Red Hat Virtualization can migrate virtual machines between other servers running Red Hat En-
terprise Linux 5.0 with Virtualization. Further, migration is performed in an offline method (using
the xm migrate command). Live migration can be done from the same command. However
there are some additional modifications that you must do to the xend-config configuration file.
This example identifies the entries that you must modify to ensure a successful migration:

(xend-relocation-server yes)
The default for this parameter is 'no', which keeps the relocation/migration server deactiv-
ated (unless on a trusted network) and the domain virtual memory is exchanged in raw form
without encryption.

(xend-relocation-port 8002)
This parameter sets the port that xend uses for migration. This value is correct, just make
sure to remove the comment that comes before it.

(xend-relocation-address )
This parameter is the address that listens for relocation socket connections, after you en-
able the xend-relocation-server . When listening, it restricts the migration to a particular in-
terface.

(xend-relocation-hosts-allow )
This parameter controls the host that communicates with the relocation port. If the value is
empty, then all incoming connections are allowed. You must change this to a space-
separated sequences of regular expressions (such as xend-relocation-hosts-allow-
'^localhost\\.localdomain$' ). A host with a fully qualified domain name or IP address that
matches these expressions are accepted.

After you configure these parameters, you must reboot the host for the Red Hat Virtualization to
accept your new parameters.
24. Interpreting Error Messages
You receive the following error:

failed domain creation due to memory shortage, unable to balloon domain0

A domain can fail if there is not enough RAM available. Domain0 does not balloon down enough
to provide space for the newly created guest. You can check the xend.log file for this error:

[2006-12-21] 20:33:31 xend 3198] DEBUG (balloon:133) Balloon: 558432 Kib free; 0 to scrub; need 1048576;
[2006-12-21] 20:33:31 xend. XendDomainInfo 3198] ERROR (XendDomainInfo: 202
Domain construction failed

You can check the amount of memory in use by domain0 by using the xm list Domain0 com-
mand. If domain0 is not ballooned down, you can use the command "xm mem-set Domain-0 New-
MemSize" to check memory.

You receive the following error:

wrong kernel image: non-PAE kernel on a PAE

This message indicates that you are trying to run an unsupported guest kernel image on your
Hypervisor. This happens when you try to boot a non-PAE paravirtual guest kernel on a RHEL
5.0 hypervisor. Red Hat Virtualization only supports guest kernels with PAE and 64bit architec-
tures.

Type this command:

[root@smith]# xm create -c va base

Using config file "va-base"

Error: (22, 'invalid argument')
[2006-12-14 14:55:46 xend.XendDomainInfo 3874] ERRORs
(XendDomainInfo:202) Domain construction failed

Traceback (most recent call last)

File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/xen/xend/XendDomainInfo.py", line 195 in create vm.initDomain()
File " /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/xen/xend/XendDomainInfo.py", line 1363 in initDomain raise VmErr
VmError: (22, 'Invalid argument')
[2006-12-14 14:55:46 xend.XendDomainInfo 3874] DEBUG (XenDomainInfo: 1449]
XendDlomainInfo.destroy: domin=1
[2006-12-14 14:55:46 xend.XendDomainInfo 3874] DEBUG (XenDomainInfo: 1457]
XendDlomainInfo.destroy:Domain(1)

If you need to run a 32bit/non-PAE kernel you will need to run your guest as a fully virtualized
virtual machine. For paravirtualized guests, if you need to run a 32bit PAE guest, then you must
 24. Interpreting Error Messages

have a 32bit PAE hypervisor. For paravirtualized guests, if you need to run a 64bit PAE guest,
then you must have a 64bit PAE hypervisor. For full virtulization guests you must run a 64bit
guest with a 64bit hypervisor. The 32bit PAE hypervisor that comes with RHEL 5 i686 only sup-
ports running 32bit PAE paravirtualized and 32 bit fully virtualized guest OSes. The 64bit hyper-
visor only supports 64bit paravirtualized guests.

This happens when you move the full virtualized HVM guest onto a RHEL 5.0 system. Your
guest may fail to boot and you will see an error in the console screen. Check the PAE entry in
your configuration file and ensure that pae=1.You should use a 32bit distibution.

You receive the following error:

Unable to open a connection to the Xen hypervisor or daemon

This happens when the virt-manager application fails to launch. This error occurs when there is
no localhost entry in the /etc/hosts configuration file. Check the file and verify if the localhost
entry is enabled. Here is an example of an incorrect localhost entry:

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs

# that require network functionality will fail.
localhost.localdomain localhost

Here is an example of a correct localhost entry:

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs

# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
localhost.localdomain. localhost

You receive the following error (in the xen-xend.log file ):

Bridge xenbr1 does not exist!

This happens when the guest's bridge is incorrectly configured and this forces the Xen hotplug
scipts to timeout. If you move configuration files between hosts, you must ensure that you up-
date the guest configuration files to reflect network topology and configuration modifications.
When you attempt to start a guest that has an incorrect or non-existent Xen bridge configura-
tion, you will receive the following errors:

[root@trumble virt]# xm create r5b2-mySQL01

Using config file " r5b2-mySQL01"

Going to boot Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (2.6.18.-1.2747 .el5xen)
kernel: /vmlinuz-2.6.18-12747.el5xen
 25. Online Troubleshooting Resources

initrd: /initrd-2.6.18-1.2747.el5xen.img
Error: Device 0 (vif) could not be connected. Hotplug scripts not working.

In addition, the xend.log displays the following errors:

[2006-11-14 15:07:08 xend 3875] DEBUG (DevController:143) Waiting for devices vif
[2006-11-14 15:07:08 xend 3875] DEBUG (DevController:149) Waiting for 0
[2006-11-14 15:07:08 xend 3875] DEBUG (DevController:464) hotplugStatusCallback

/local/domain/0/backend/vif/2/0/hotplug-status

[2006-11-14 15:08:09 xend.XendDomainInfo 3875] DEBUG (XendDomainInfo:1449) XendDomainInfo.destroy: domid

[2006-11-14 15:08:09 xend.XendDomainInfo 3875] DEBUG (XendDomainInfo:1457) XendDomainInfo.destroyDomain(
[2006-11-14 15:07:08 xend 3875] DEBUG (DevController:464) hotplugStatusCallback

/local/domain/0/backend/vif/2/0/hotplug-status

To resolve this problem, you must edit your guest configuration file, and modify the vif entry.
When you locate the vif entry of the configuration file, assuming you are using xenbr0 as the
default bridge, ensure that the proper entry resembles the following:

# vif = ['mac=00:16:3e:49:1d:11, bridge=xenbr0',]

You receive these python depreciation errors:

[root@python xen]# xm shutdown win2k3xen12

[root@python xen]# xm create win2k3xen12

Using config file "win2k3xen12".

/usr/lib64/python2.4/site-packages/xenxm/opts.py:520: Deprecation Warning:

Non ASCII character '\xc0' in file win2k3xen12 on line 1, but no encoding
declared; see http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0263.html for details

execfile (defconfig, globs, locs,)

Error: invalid syntax 9win2k3xen12, line1)

Python generates these messages when an invalid (or incorrect) configuration file. To resolve
this problem, you must modify the incorrect configuration file, or you can generate a new one.

25. Online Troubleshooting Resources

• Red Hat Virtualization Center

http://www.openvirtualization.com
[http://www.openvirtualization.com/]
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 2 Documentation

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-5-manual/index.html

• Libvirt API

http://www.libvirt.org
[http://www.libvirt.org/]

• virt-manager Project Home Page

http://virt-manager.et.redhat.com
[http://virt-manager.et.redhat.com/]

• Xen Community Center

http://www.xensource.com/xen/xen/

• Virtualization Technologies Overview

http://virt.kernelnewbies.org
[http://virt.kernelnewbies.org/]

• Emerging Technologies Projects

http://et.redhat.com
[http://et.redhat.com/]

93
 Chapter 20. Additional Resources
To learn more about Red Hat Virtualization, refer to the following resources.

1. Useful Websites

• http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/srg/netos/xen/ — The project website of the Xen para-

virtualization machine manager from which Red Hat Virtualization is derived. The site main-
tains the upstream Xen project binaries and sourcecode and also contains information, ar-
chitecture overviews, documentation, and related links regarding Xen and its associated
technologies.

• http://www.libvirt.org/ — The official website for the libvirt virtualization API that interacts
with the virtualization framework of a host OS.

• http://virt-manager.et.redhat.com/ — The project website for the Virtual Machine Manager

(virt-manager), the graphical application for managing virtual machines.

2. Installed Documentation

• /usr/share/doc/xen-<version-number>/ —. This directory contains a wealth of information

about the Xen para-virtualization hypervisor and associated management tools, including a
look at various example configurations, hardware-specific information, and the current Xen
upstream user documentation.

• man virsh and /usr/share/doc/libvirt-<version-number> — Contains subcommands and

options for the virsh virtual machine management utility as well as comprehensive informa-
tion about the libvirt virtualization library API.

• /usr/share/doc/gnome-applet-vm-<version-number> — Documentation for the GNOME

graphical panel applet that monitors and manages locally-running virtual machines.

• /usr/share/doc/libvirt-python-<version-number> — Provides details on the Python bind-

ings for the libvirt library. The libvirt-python package allows python developers to create
programs that interface with the libvirt virtualization management library.

• /usr/share/doc/python-virtinst-<version-number> — Provides documentation on the virt-

install command that helps in starting installations of Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux
related distributions inside of virtual machines.

• /usr/share/doc/virt-manager-<version-number> — Provides documentation on the Virtual

Machine Manager, which provides a graphical tool for administering virtual machines.

94
 Appendix A. Revision History
Revision History
Revision 5.0.0-8 Thu Apr 05 2007

Resolves: #235311
Clarifying SELinux installation procedure
Revision 5.0.0-7 Wed Feb 07 2007

Resolves: #224220 #225169

Additional Developer Feedback
Revision 5.0.0-6 Thu Jan 31 2007

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 Appendix B. Lab 1
Xen Guest Installation

Goal: To install RHEL 3, 4, or 5 and Windows XP Xen guests.

Prerequisites: A workstation installed with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 with Virtualization com-
ponent.

For this lab, you will configure and install RHEL 3, 4, or 5 and Win XP Xen guests using various
virtualization tools.

Lab Sequence 1: Checking for PAE support

You must determine whether your system has PAE support. Red Hat Virtualization supports
x86_64 or ia64 based CPU architectures to run para-virtualized guests. To run i386 guests the
system requires a CPU with PAE extensions. Many older laptops (particularly those based on
Pentium Mobile or Centrino) do not support PAE.

1. To determine if your CPU has PAE support, type:

grep pae /proc/cpuinfo

2. The following output shows a CPU that has PAE support. If the command returns nothing,
then the CPU does not have PAE support. All the lab exercises require a i386 CPU with
PAE extension or x86_64 or ia64 in order to proceed.

flags :
fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi
mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe nx up est tm2

Lab Sequence 2: Installing RHEL5 Beta 2 Xen para-virtualized guest using virt-install.

For this lab, you must install a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 2 Xen guest using virt-install.

1. To install your Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 2 Xen guest, at the command prompt type:
virt-install.

2. When asked to install a fully virtualized guest, type: no.

3. Type rhel5b2-pv1 for your virtual machine name.

4. Type 500 for your RAM allocation.

5. Type /xen/rhel5b2-pv1.img for your disk (guest image).

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6. Type 6 for the size of your disk (guest image).

7. Type yes to enable graphics support.

8. Type nfs:server:/path/to/rhel5b2 for your install location.

9. The installation begins. Proceed as normal with the installation.

10. After the installation completes, type /etc/xen/rhel5b2-pv1, and make the following
changes: #vnc=1#vncunused=1sdl=1

11. Use a text editor to modify /etc/inittab, and append this to the file: init
5.#id:3:initdefault:id:5:initdefault:

Lab Sequence 3: Installing RHEL5 Beta 2 Xen para-virtualized guest using virt-manager.

For this lab, you will install a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 2 Xen paravirtualized guest using
virt-manager.

1. To install your Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 2 Xen guest, at the command prompt type:
virt-manager.

2. On the Open Connection window, select Local Xen host, and click on Connect.

3. Start Red Hat's Virtual Machine Manager application, and from the File menu, click on
New.

4. Click on Forward.

5. Type rhel5b2-pv2 for your system name, and click on Forward.

6. Select Paravirtualized, and click Forward.

7. Type nfs:server:/path/to/rhel5b2 for your install media URL, and click Forward.

8. Select Simple File, type /xen/rhel5b2-pv2.img for your file location. Choose 6000 MB, and
click Forward.

9. Choose 500 for your VM Startup and Maximum Memory, and click Forward.

10. Click Finish.

The Virtual Machine Console window appears. Proceed as normal and finish up the installation.

Lab Sequence 4: Checking for Intel-VT or AMD-V support

For this lab, you must determine if your system supports Intel-VT or AMD-V hardware. Your sys-
tem must support Intel-VT or AMD-V enabled CPUs to successfully install the fully virtualized
guest operating systems. Red Hat Virtualization incorporates a generic HVM layer to support
these CPU vendors.

1. To determine if your CPU has Intel-VT or AMD-V support, type the following command:
egrep -e 'vmx|svm' /proc/cpuinfo

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2. The following output shows a CPU that supports Intel-VT:

.flags :
fpu tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse
sse2 ss ht tm pbe constant_tsc pni monitor vmx est tm2 xtpr

If the command returns nothing, then the CPU does not support Intel-VT or AMD-V.

3. To determine if your CPU has Intel-VT or AMD-V support, type the following command:

at /sys/hypervisor/properties/capabilities

4. The following output shows that Intel-VT support has been enabled in the BIOS. If the com-
mand returns nothing, then go into the BIOS Setup Utlility and look for a setting related to
'Virtualization', i.e. 'Intel(R) Virtualization Technology' under 'CPU' section on a IBM T60p.
Enable and save the setting and do a power off to take effect.

xen-3.0-x86_32p hvm-3.0-x86_32 hvm-3.0-x86_32p

Lab Sequence 5: Installing RHEL5 Beta 2 Xen fully virtualized guest using virt-install.

For this lab, you will install a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 2 Xen fully virtualized guest using
virt-install:

1. To install your Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 2 Xen guest, at the command prompt type:
virt-install.

2. When prompted to install a fully virtualized guest, type yes.

3. Type rhel5b2-pv2 for your virtual machine name.

4. Type 500 for your memory allocation.

5. Type /xen/rhel5b2-fv1.img for your disk (guest image).

6. Type 6 for the size of your disk (guest image).

7. Type yes to enable graphics support.

8. Type /dev/cdrom for the virtual CD image.

9. The VNC viewer appears within the installation window. If there is an error message that
says “main: Unable to connect to host: Connection refused (111)”, then type the following
command to proceed: vncviewer localhost:5900. VNC port 5900 refers to the first Xen
guest that is running on VNC. If it doesn't work, you might need to use 5901, 5902, etc.

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The installation begins. Proceed as normal with the installation.

Lab Sequence 6: Installing RHEL5 Beta 2 Xen fully virtualized guest using virt-manager.

For this lab, you will install a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 2 Xen fully virtualized guest using
virt-manager:

1. To install your Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 2 Xen guest, at the command prompt type:
virt-manager.

2. On the Open Connection window, select Local Xen host, and click on Connect.

3. Start Red Hat's Virtual Machine Monitor application, and from the File menu, click on New.

4. Click on Forward.

5. Type rhel5b2-fv2 for your system name, and click on Forward.

6. Select Fully virtualized, and click Forward.

7. Specify either CD-ROM or DVD, and enter the path to install media. Specify ISO Image loc-
ation if you will install from an ISO image. Click Forward.

8. Select Simple File, type /xen/rhel5b2-fv2.img for your file location. Specify 6000 MB, and
click Forward.

9. Choose 500 for your VM Startup and Maximum Memory, and click Forward.

10. Click Finish .

11. The Virtual Machine Console window appears.

Proceed as normal and finish up the installation.

Lab Sequence 7: Installing RHEL3 Xen fully virtualized guest using virt-manager.

For this lab, you will install a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Xen guest using virt-manager:

1. The same instructions for Lab Sequence 6 applies here.

Lab Sequence 8: Installing RHEL4 Xen fully virtualized guest using virt-manager

For this lab, you will install a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Xen guest using virt-manager :

1. The same instructions for Lab Sequence 6 applies here.

Lab Sequence 9: Installing Windows XP Xen fully virtualized guest using virt-manager.

For this lab, you will install a Windows XP Xen fully virtualized guest using virt-manager:

1. To install your Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 on your Windows XP host, at the command
prompt type: virt-manager.

2. On the Open Connection window, select Local Xen host, and click on Connect.
3. Start Red Hat's Virtual Machine Manager application, and from the File menu click on New.

4. Click on Forward.

5. Type winxp for your system name, and click on Forward.

6. Select Fully virtualized, and click Forward.

7. Specify either CD-ROM or DVD, and enter the path to install media. Specify ISO Image loc-
ation if you will install from an ISO image. Click Forward.

8. Select Simple File, type /xen/winxp.img for your file location. Specify 6000 MB, and click
Forward.

9. Select 1024 for your VM Startup and Maximum Memory, and select 2 for VCPUs. Click
Forward .

10. Click Finish.

11. The Virtual Machine Console window appears. Proceed as normal and finish up the install-
ation.

12. Choose to format the C:\ partition in FAT file system format. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
does not come with NTFS kernel modules. Mounting or writing files to the Xen guest image
may not be as straight-forward if you were to format the partition in NTFS file system
format.

13. After you reboot the system for the first time, edit the winxp guest image: losetup /
dev/loop0 /xen/winxp.imgkpartx -av /dev/loop0mount /dev/mapper/loop0p1 /mntcp -prv
$WINDOWS/i386 /mnt/. This fixes a problem that you may face in the later part of the Win-
dows installation.

14. Restart the Xen guest manually by typing: xm create -c winxp/.

15. In the Virtual Machine Manager window, select the winxp Xen guest and click Open.

16. The Virtual Machine Console window appears. Proceed as normal and finish up with the in-
stallation.

17. Whenever a 'Files Needed' dialog box appears, change the path GLOBAL-
ROOT\DEVICE\CDROM0\I386 to C:\I386. Depending on your installation, you may or may not
see this problem. You may be prompted for missing files during the installation. Changing
the path to C:\I386 should compensate for this problem.

18. If the Xen guest console freezes, click shutdown, make the following changes in /
etc/xen/winxp:#vnc=1#vncunused=1sdl=1#vcpus=2

19. Repeat step 14 and proceed as normal with the installation.

 Appendix C. Lab 2
Live Migration

Goal: To configure and perform a live migration between two hosts.

Prerequisite: Two workstations installed with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 Beta 2 with Virtualiz-
ation Platform, and a Fedora Core 6 Xen guest on one of the two workstations.

For this lab, you will configure the migration and execute a live migration between two hosts.

Introduction: Before you begin

For this lab, you will need two Virtualization hosts: a Xen guest and a shared storage. You must
connect the two Virtualization hosts via a UTP cable. One of the Virtualization hosts exports a
shared storage via NFS. You must configure both of the Virtualization hosts so they migrate
successfully. The Xen guest resides on the shared storage. On the Xen guest, you should in-
stall a streaming server. You must make sure that the streaming server still runs without any in-
terruptions on the Xen guest, so the live migration takes place between one Virtualization host
and the other. For Lab 2, you will refer the two Virtualization hosts as host1 and host2 .

Sequence 1: Configuring xend (both Xen hosts)

In this Lab procedure, you configure xend to start up as a HTTP server and a relocation server.
The xend daemon does not initiate the HTTP server by default. It starts the UNIX domain socket
management server (for xm) and communicates with xend. To enable cross-machine live migra-
tion, you must configure it to support live migration:

1. To make a backup of your xend-config.sxp file:

cp -pr /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp.default

2. Edit /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp and make the following changes:

#(xend-unix-server yes)(xend-relocation-server
yes)(xend-relocation-port 8002)(xend-relocation-address
'')(xend-relocation-hosts-allow '')#(xend-relocation-hosts-allow '^localhost$
^localhost\\.localdomain$')

3. Restart xend:service and xend restart.

Sequence 2: Exporting a shared storage via NFS

For this lab procedure, you will configure NFS and use it to export a shared storage.

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1. Edit /etc/exports and include the line: /xen *(rw,sync,no_root_squash)/

2. Save /etc/exports and restart the NFS server. Make sure that the NFS server starts by de-
fault:service nfs startchkconfig nfs on.

3. After starting the NFS server on host1, we can then mount it on host2:mount host1:/xen .

4. Now start the Xen guest on host1 and select fc6-pv1 (or fc6-pv2 from Lab 1):

xm create -c fc6-pv1

Sequence 3: Installing the Xen guest streaming server

For this lab step, you will install a streaming server, gnump3d, for our demonstration purposes.
You will select gnump3d because it supports OGG vorbis files and is easy to install, configure,
and modify.

1. Download gnump3d-2.9.9.9.tar.bz2 tarball from http://www.gnump3d.org/ . Unpack the tar-

ball and in the gnump3d-2.9.9.9/ directory, compile, and install the gnump3d application:tar
xvjf gnump3d-2.9.9.9.tar.bz2cd gnump3d-2.9.9.9/make install

2. Create a /home/mp3 directory and copy TruthHappens.ogg from Red Hat's Truth Happens
page to mkdir /home/mp3wget -c http://www.redhat.com/v/ogg/TruthHappens.ogg

3. Start the streaming server by typing

command:gnump3d

4. On either one of the two Xen hosts, start running the Movie Player. If it is not installed, then
install the totem and iso-codecs rpms before running the Movie Player. Click Applications,
then Sound & Video, and finally Movie Player.

5. Click Movie, then Open Location. Enter http://guest:8888/TruthHappens.ogg.

Sequence 4: Performing live migration

1. Run the TruthHappens.ogg file on one of the two Xen hosts.

2. Perform the live migration from host1 to host2:

xm migrate –live fc6-pv1 host2

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3. Open multiple window terminals on both Xen hosts with the following command:

watch -n1 xm list

4. Observe as the live migration beginss. Note how long it takes for migration to complete.

Challenge Sequence: Configuring VNC server from within the Xen guest

If time permits, from within the Xen guest, configure the VNC server to initiate when gdm starts
up. Run VNC viewer and connect to the Xen guest. Play with the Xen guest when the live mi-
gration occurs. Attempt to pause/resume, and save/restore the Xen guest and observe what
happens to the VNC viewer. If you connect to the VNC viewer via localhost:590x, and do a live
migration, you won't be able to connect to the VNC viewer again when it dies. This is a known
bug.

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