EFW Support

Hi.

I've a  of EFW 2.4 installations as Xen or XenServer virtual machines. It works great, but they're hardware virtualized (HVM) so they're slower than how it could be if Paravirtualized (PV).

Has anyone had success in converting efw from hvm to pv?
I tried on a Xen opensource installation but didn't manage, every time (iirc) Endian wasn't detecting partitions..

After a lot of trial and error I finally got this working today. Here are some directions for Xenserver 5.5 and Endian Paravirtualization. I received a lot of help from "Aender" on his endian forum post.  Thank you.

1. Download Endian src rpms.  Copy the PAE kernel to your working Endian 2.4 in HVM mode and install with --nodeps option. It complains about being "i686" instead of "i586" rpm.
2. Edit  /boot/grub/device.map and change to "/dev/xvda".
3. Edit /boot/grub/grub.conf and add "console=hvc0" to your PAE kernel line.
4. Edit /etc/inittab and change "tty1" on first  respawn line to "hvc0".
5. Edit /etc/businfotab and change the eth0 line to "eth0  Xen-eth0" and the eth1 line to "eth1 Xen-eth1".
6. Edit /etc/securetty and add "hvc0" to the bottom of the list.

On the Citrix Xen host machine do the following:

1. Run xe vm-list to indentify the virtual machine.
2. Run xe vm-param-set uuid="virtual machine uuid" HVM-boot-policy=""
3. Run xe vm-param-remove uuid="virtual machine uuid" param-name=HVM-boot-params param-key=order
4. Run xe vm-param-set uuid="virtual machine uuid" PV-bootloader=pygrub
5. Run xe vm-param-list uuid="virtual machine uuid" to check work.
6. Run xe vbd-list to identify virtual machine disk.
7. Run xe vbd-param-set uuid="virtual disk uuid" bootable=true

Reboot your virtual machine to test.

This will also work with Endian 2.4.1 if you install the PAE kernel from version 2.4.  This will back-rev the kernel but without having a PAE kernel for 2.4.1 or sources we are left with very little options. You will need to install the kernel with the --nodeps option.

Hi Martman22,

I'd like to setup my own Endian 2.3 in PV mode on Xen Host.
where do i find the Endian src rpms?

thanks

I'm not allowed to use URL's in this forum but you can do a search on Sourceforge.net and you should find them there.

Hello,

I'm trying to install EFW 2.5 on Xen 6. Which template did you select during the creation of the new VM? I have tried "Other Install Media" and the console goes blank during the install. Can you help?

THanks,
Ken.

I usually use a Windows 2003 template for the initial install. I did not try version 2.5 yet as I am downloading it now. I'll let you know how it goes.

Installed fine on XenServer 5.6.

Very nice, thanks for this tip.
After restarting the machine I installed the packages:
xe-guest-utilities-5.6.0-xenstore-578
xe-guest-utilities-5.6.0-578
And yet the XenCenter continues with the message "XenServer tools not installed"
You could make this message go away?

In version 2.51 you can install the PV kernel using "smart install kernel-PAE" .