How to install Xen4.0 on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

This post provides documentation about how to get Xen4.0 (the opensouce version) up and running on an Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Long Term Support) 64-bit machine.

Start of with a fresh new installation of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. Install the required packages first:

apt-get install bcc bin86 gawk bridge-utils iproute libcurl3 libcurl4-openssl-dev bzip2 module-init-tools transfig tgif texinfo texlive-latex-base texlive-latex-recommended texlive-fonts-extra texlive-fonts-recommended pciutils-dev mercurial build-essential make gcc libc6-dev zlib1g-dev python python-dev python-twisted libncurses5-dev patch libvncserver-dev libsdl-dev libjpeg62-dev iasl libbz2-dev e2fslibs-dev git-core uuid-dev ocaml libx11-dev

On a 64-bit machine, you will also need this additional package:

apt-get install gcc-multilib

The next step is to get Xen4.0.1

cd /usr/src/
wget http://bits.xensource.com/oss-xen/release/4.0.1/xen-4.0.1.tar.gz

Un-tar and make:

tar xf xen-4.0.1.tar.gz
cd xen-4.0.1
make xen
make tools
make stubdom

At this point you should have the Xen hypervisor/tools binaries in "dist/" directory ready for installation. Now run:

make install-xen
make install-tools
make install-stubdom


The next step is to download and compile a dom0 kernel, and to update the grub file. We can do this using the following commands:

make prep-kernels


This will create a build-linux-2.6-pvops_x86_64 directory in /usr/src/ which has by a .config file in it. You need to modify the .config file to suit your requirements. You can have a look at mine here. (Source Boris Derzhavets).
You could use make menuconfig from inside the build-linux-2.6-pvops_x86_64 to make alterations to your .config file.

cd build-linux-2.6-pvops_x86_64
make menuconfig
make
chmod g-s /usr/src/ -R
make deb-pkg
dpkg -i ../linux-image-2.6.32.21-xen_*.deb
depmod 2.6.32.21-xen
update-initramfs -c -k 2.6.32.21-xen


At this point enable Xend at boot:

update-rc.d xend defaults 20 21
update-rc.d xendomains defaults 21 20


When I typed in the last two lines, I got warning messages saying:

update-rc.d: warning: xend start runlevel arguments (2 3 4 5) do not match LSB
Default-Start values (3 4 5)
update-rc.d: warning: xend stop runlevel arguments (0 1 6) do not match LSB
Default-Stop values (0 1 2 6)


Apparently these messages are benign and should not cause any issues in the working of Xen Daemon. Now create the Grub2 entry for your new kernel:

vim /etc/grub.d/40_custom


Following is what I entered to in the 40_custom file. My installation still has issues because the graphics driver keeps crashing, and I think that the grub file has something to do with it.

#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.

menuentry 'Xen 4.0.1, Ubuntu 10.4 kernel 2.6.32.21' {
recordfail
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,1)'
multiboot (hd0,1)/boot/xen-4.0.1.gz dummy=dummy dom0_mem=832M
module (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32.21-xen dummy=dummy root=/dev/sda1 nopat ro nomodeset console=tty0 earlyprintk=xen
module (hd0,1)/boot/initrd.img-2.6.32.21-xen
}


Update grub and reboot... And choose the correct grub option from the boot-up menu.

update-grub
reboot