Xen OS Support

From OptionC

General Information

What operating systems are "supported" depends on what you want to do with them. Xen has two different types of guest operating system:

• Domain 0, the "privileged guest" which is the only guest that is allowed direct access to the control interface (for managing the sharing of various devices) and is responsible for (among other things) creating and booting all the other "unprivileged guests." There is only ever one Domain 0 on a physical machine.
• Domain U, referred to as "unprivileged" because it usually only has access to virtual devices, and only gets direct physical access through special configuration options. There can be any number of "DomUs" on an instance of physical hardware.

Currently, the operating systems that have been ported to Xen and can run as Domain 0 are Linux 2.4, Linux 2.6, and NetBSD. In addition to those, FreeBSD has been ported and can run as a Domain U. I know that work is also in progress for porting Plan 9 and ReactOS, and have seen other efforts (such as Ozone) reach varying levels.

Linux Distributions

If what you really wanted to know is "what Linux distributions are most seamlessly integrated with Xen and the various administration tools," that is a question that comes up often on the list, with the answers changing quickly. I'm going from memory here, but I know that SUSE Professional 9.3 ships with Xen, as does Fedora Core 4. I've also noticed that a lot of people are successfully running Xen with Debian, but since I filter for that, I would notice it more. Gentoo is working on packages. As to Mandriva, I know there are people out there who run it as a domain O, and I've seen at least one post to xen-devel from somebody at Mandriva.

Sorry if that was a bit free form, here are some links

• Debian
  • Xen 3.x
    • Howtoforge: Debian Etch (4.0) + Xen 3 (3.1) (http://www.howtoforge.com/debian_etch_xen_3.1)
    • Howtoforge: Debian Sarge (3.0) + Xen 3 (3.0.3) (http://www.howtoforge.com/debian_sarge_xen_3.0.3)
  • Xen 2.x
    • Xen Debian Quick Start for 2.x on Sarge - on this wiki
    • XenSource Debian Sarge Wiki (http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/DebianSarge)
    • grifferz/Xen - Blitzed (http://wiki.blitzed.org/User:grifferz/Xen) Uses Debian Sarge as a base and debootstrap for the dom U, builds from source.
    • Howto for XEN with Debian Sarge on a remote server (http://www.xmlvalidation.com/xen_howto_sarge.0.html) 2.0.5-3 Debian packages, custom compilation of kernel
    • Debian Sarge Root Raid + LVM + XEN install guide (http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-devel/2005-01/msg00354.html) This is from 2.0.3, and from when Sarge was still testing, but it is still very useful
  • The Perfect Xen Setup For Debian And Ubuntu (http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_xen_setup_debian_ubuntu)

• Fedora/Red Hat
  • the Fedora wiki currently has Quickstarts through FC6, and other tips and hints (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Tools/Xen)
  • Xen, Virtualization on Linux (http://www.redhat.com/magazine/004feb05/features/virtualization/) from redhat.com, uses (I believe) FC3
  • Red Hat Knowledgebase (virtualization FAQs) (http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/topten_108_0.shtm)

• Mandrake/Mandriva
  • Mandriva/Mandrake 10.1 howto (http://www.jimradford.com/xen/)
  • the June 22 entry has a howto for 2.0.6 (http://www.dinamis.com/blog/)
• Suse
  • Xen packages and kernels for SUSE Linux (http://www.suse.de/~garloff/linux/xen/)
  • I, Xen an Openskills guide to installation and use of Xen on Suse 9.3 (http://openskills.info/release/i-xen/)
• Ubuntu
  • Howtoforge: Ubuntu Feisty (7.0.4) + Xen 3 (http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_7.04_xen_from_repositories)
  • ubuntu wiki (http://wiki.ubuntu.com:443/XenVirtualMachine)
  • Xen Tutorial from Clarkson (http://cosi.clarkson.edu/knowledge/workshops/sp05/installingxen/xen-tutorial.html) Ubuntu as base/2.0.5 binary install
  • Ubuntu integration (http://sparky.ath.cx/wp/) - updates from the Ubuntu Breezy Bounty  (http://udu.wiki.ubuntu.com/BreezyBounties) (Google SoC) Xen integration developer
  • The Perfect Xen Setup For Debian And Ubuntu (http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_xen_setup_debian_ubuntu)

Other

• NetBSD/xen NetBSD/Xen Howto (http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/xen/howto.html) - for Domain 0 and Domain U
• OpenSolaris (http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/tpm?entry=the_xen_summit) - call for help with port
• ReactOS (http://reactos.com/wiki/index.php/Xen_port) - status of port
• Porting Ozone to Xen (http://www.o3one.org/xen.html) (Xen 1.2)
• Xen with OSX - thoughts