XenOld [FreeBSD WIKI]

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====== Old FreeBSD/Xen port wiki page ======

The port will only run as a guest (ie. domU) right now, on i386/PAE platforms.

===== Status =====
  * domU is self-hosting on 8-CURRENT (can compile world + kernel in a VM). Latest sources are CVS/SVN.
  * domU support is available for 6.3 and RELENG_6 in project branches:
    * 6.3-RELEASE  svn:%%//%%svn.freebsd.org/base/projects/release_6_3_xen/
    * RELENG_6     svn:%%//%%svn.freebsd.org/base/projects/releng_6_xen/
  * Xen 3.0.3 and earlier are not currently supported.
  * Amazon's EC2 uses 3.0.3.
  * Device structure needs to be cleaned up, it's not conformant to newbus.
  * SMP support is working.
  * amd64 support is planned.
  * 3.1 has been tested under vmware and on real hardware with a 32-bit dom0 (one cannot run 32-bit guests with a 64-bit dom0 on xen 3.1)
  * 3.2 has been tested on real hardware with both 32-bit and 64-bit dom0
  * 3.3 has been tested on real hardware with a 32-bit dom0

===== TODO =====
  * Substantial cleanup needed - check with Kip Macy or Scott Long for further details if you are interested.
  * Device tree:
    * Add a newbus nexus for the front-end bus
    * Figure out how to get xenstore working in time for the bus scan (get scheduler running)
    * Convert drivers to newbus
  * XEN kernel conf file cleanup:
    * Remove options and devices that don't apply to Xen
    * Add xc, xbd, and xn devices, and update /sys/conf/files.i386 appropriately
  * Fix blkfront to give sensible unit numbers

===== Warnings =====
  * If you want to use xen as a development environment you would be well advised to install a 32-bit dom0. The libxc interface that emulates ptrace for gdbserver-xen cannot fetch a 32-bit register set when running on a 64-bit kernel.
  * There are problem reports on some systems with the %%DomU%% clock not running reliably, giving stalled or sporadic console output and system progress during boot.  This is being investigated.  Please contact us if you are experiencing this.

===== Setup =====
To help get one started a small file-backed disk and some sample configuration files can be found at:

http://www.fsmware.com/xenofreebsd/7.0/download/

Steps I used for installing Xen 3.2 on a recent %%CentOS%%:

Install zlib-devel, gcc, libX11-devel, openssl-devel, ncurses-devel, bridge-utils, python-devel.

Install git if it's not already included in the Dom0 install; it's needed by the Xen build.

Fetch mercurial:

<code>
wget http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/release/mercurial-1.0.2.tar.gz
</code>

Build & install mercurial:

<code>
python setup.py config; python setup.py build; python setup.py install
</code>

Fetch xen sources:

<code>
hg clone http://xenbits.xensource.com/xen-3.2-testing.hg
</code>

Build and install the xen kernel, modules, and tools:

<code>
cd xen-3.3-testing.hg ; make world && make install
</code>

Create new initrd:

<code>
mkinitrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18.8-xen.img 2.6.18.8-xen
</code>

Update /boot/grub/grub.conf (menu.lst on some systems).  A sample entry might look like this:

<code>
title Xen (2.6.18.8-xen-3.3)
        root (hd0,1)
        kernel /boot/xen-3.3.gz console=com1 com1=115200,8n1
        module /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18.8-xen ro root=/dev/sda2 rhgb console=tty console=ttyS0,115200
        module /boot/initrd-2.6.18.8-xen.img
</code>

**NOTE: Don't use this example verbatim without reviewing the "//root//****" parameters**

===== Updates =====
For questions about %%FreeBSD%% on xen and next steps please contact Kip Macy - he can be reached at kmacy at freebsd.org. There is also a dedicated mailing list: http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen

Kip Macy is currently working on a RELENG_7 backport.

This entry is referenced by the [[http://bsdresearch.blogspot.com|BSD Research blog]].

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