LIA Practice

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Goals

The goal of this practice is let the SNE master students get the first impression of Xen by manually setting up
a new Xen Dom0, creating several virtual machines and networking them together. Different tasks are designed
to facilitate the students' understanding of the working mechanism of Virtualization Technology (VT), the
networking issue (e.g. routing, bridging) and the migration problem in the Large Data Center.

NOTICE

Please make sure every OS you installed has the latest security patch. All Doms must be protected!

Assignments

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Day 1 - Monday, 5 Feb 2007

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Tasks:
Install Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) on your own machine. In BIOS, enable VT support and the second network interface (eth1). When manually partitioning, use first disk (sda) for swap, boot, and VM-images. After installation, update your system first.

Install Xen package on Ubuntu Edgy. Make sure you have all required packages installed. Create the initrd image for Xen kernel and edit the GRUB for booting. Set the right root path in the boot menu. Once done, reboot and login to check whether the Dom0 is up and running properly (sudo xm list).

Ref: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/XenVirtualMachine/XenOnUbuntuEdgy∞

To be able to work remotely, setup an SSH server and remote desktop server on Dom0 using VNC. Try to use VNC client to connect to the remote desktop of your machine, then you can keep away from the console.

Tips: For getting gnome in a non-0 X window, follow the steps:




Create the first Hardware Virtual Machine (HVM) by editing the configuration file using a iso-image as a bootable cdrom and install Windows XP on a harddisk image file. (without network now)

Ref: http://www.xensource.com/files/xen_install_windows.pdf//∞
Tips: change the boot flag [boot = d] to [boot = c] after the installation.

1.5 Networking

Investigate how the Xen bridging network works and try to implement the 'desired' network. Change the Xen network-bridge scripts to add two extra bridges and create a new logical interface(eth2). Assign you own /29 public IP address on eth2 to make it as a gateway for the DomUs. and add that interface to xenbr2. Setup a DHCP server on Dom0 to enable the allocation of the /29 IP addresses to different DomUs. Check wiki.os3.nl for your own range of IP addresses.

1.6 Bonus

Make it possible for the Windows VM to access Internet to update its security patch.

Hint: Enable ip_forwarding in Dom0 and be aware of the default firewall setting of Windows.

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Day 2 - Tuesday, 6 Feb 2007

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Tasks:

2.1 Networking (cont.)

Complete the Xen networking task from the previous one. Make sure the network configuration keeps the same at every start-up time. The first Windows VM needs to be accessible from outside. In the later tasks, the correctness of your configuration can be validated. Keep good track of your changes.

2.2 More DomUs

Create two new HVMs and install Ubuntu and Fedora core respectively. Each of them should have two network interfaces (eth0, eth1) as described in the 'desired' network picture. Check the network of each DomU works properly. If not, trace back to your network configuration. Be sure to patch your system after installation.

Tips: Keep your names of DomUs, account/password consistent in case of confusion.

2.3 VNC for DomUs

Figure out how to remote control DomU independently not via Dom0's desktop.

2.4 Provide service

Build some kind of server (e.g. Web, FTP) on one of your virtual machines. Test it with your classmates.

2.5 Bonus

Build a domU guest using the same kernel image that was used for dom0. Use a raw partition of the second disk (sdb) to create a file-system. Try to figure out the problem you meet.

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Day 3 - Thursday, 8 Feb 2007

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Tasks:

3.1 Migration

Try to migrate your VMs to your classmates' machine. First statically copy your image and config files to the others' Dom0. Find out what kind of changes are needed to make the virtual machines running smoothly and also ensure the service on it still working.

Hint: Be aware of the difference of MAC/IP addresses

3.2 UML

Prepare one DomU with a 'clean' system installed for the UML. Compile the user mode kernel and modules on the VM. Set up the UML environment.

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Day 4 - Friday, 9 Feb 2007

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Tasks:

4.1 Live Migration

Use the Xen scripts to perform the live migration of VMs. Observe the behavior of virtual machines after live migration.

4.2 VMware

Try to install the VMware and configure some Virtual Machines on VMware. Compare the two software.

4.3 UML (cont.)

Finish the UML setup.

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