Library - Xen
by Randolf Richardson, Inter-Corporate Computer & Network Services, Inc.

Welcome to the Xen resource section of the Lumber Cartel internet site.  For the most-part, this is an instructional guide on setting up Xen on NetBSD 5 (64-bit).  As of the time of this writing, the current version of Xen is 3.3 (which includes full HVM support for guest domains, a.k.a., the DomUs), and NetBSD 5 is still in the throws of the BETA stage of development.

Xen 3.3 works very well for us, and is even being used in production (with NetBSD 5 BETA).  The only limitation we've encountered so far is that host domain (a.k.a., Dom0) must not have more than 2048 MBs (2 GBs) or RAM assigned to it, or else it will crash into the debugger when heavy disk I/O occurs.  As far as we know, this problem is currently being worked on and we look forward to its resolution in the near future.

The main branches of this section of the web site are:

• How-to (start here)
  • NetBSD 5 installation
  • Packages system
  • Install Xen
  • Install kernels
  • Boot process configuration
  • Disk images
  • Create an HVM DomU
  • Start your DomU
• Some additional tips for using Xen and its HVMs
• Solutions to common problems
• Where to get additional support

Acknowledgements

Special thanks goes to the developers of the NetBSD, Xen, and ReactOS projects for all the fine work that they do.

Additional thanks to various folks in the #NetBSD channel in the irc.freenode.net IRC network who were very helpful, and especially:

• the person behind the pseudonym "lazarus477" for testing the instructions in this guide and providing a great deal of feedback
• the person behind the pseudonym "ASau" for helping with shell usage and shell script programming tips (especially for "/etc/rc.conf")
• the person behind the pseudonym "Zaba" for helping with a shell shell command optimization tip
• the person behind the pseudonym "Venture37" for various Unix/NetBSD-specific syntax and feature information

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