Oracle Audio Technologies E10898-02 User Manual

Oracle® VM

Server User’s Guide

Release 2.1.1

E10898-02

February 2008

Oracle VM Server User’s Guide, Release 2.1.1

E10898-02

Primary Author: Alison Holloway

Contributing Authors: Kurt Hackel, Herbert van den Bergh

Contributor: Tatyana Bagerman, Michael Chan

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Preface ................................................................................................................................................................ vii

Audience...................................................................................................................................................... vii

Documentation Accessibility.................................................................................................................... vii

Command Syntax...................................................................................................................................... viii

Related Documents ................................................................................................................................... viii

Conventions ................................................................................................................................................. ix

1 Introduction to Virtualization

1.1 What is Virtualization?............................................................................................................... 1-1

1.2 Why Virtualize?........................................................................................................................... 1-1

1.3 Xen™ Technology....................................................................................................................... 1-2

1.4 Oracle VM .................................................................................................................................... 1-2

2 Oracle VM Server

2.1 Oracle VM Server........................................................................................................................ 2-1

2.2 Hypervisor ................................................................................................................................... 2-2

2.3 Domains, Guests and Virtual Machines.................................................................................. 2-2

2.4 Management Domain................................................................................................................. 2-3

2.5 Domains ....................................................................................................................................... 2-3

2.6 Hardware Virtualization Vs. Paravirtualization .................................................................... 2-3

2.7 Creating Virtual Machines......................................................................................................... 2-3

2.8 Managing Domains .................................................................................................................... 2-3

2.9 Configuring Oracle VM Server................................................................................................. 2-4

2.10 Managing Oracle VM Server Repositories.............................................................................. 2-4

3 Oracle VM Agent

3.1 Oracle VM Agent Command-Line Tool ................................................................................. 3-1

3.2 Configuring Oracle VM Agent.................................................................................................. 3-1

3.3 Starting Oracle VM Agent ......................................................................................................... 3-3

3.4 Stopping Oracle VM Agent ....................................................................................................... 3-3

3.5 Monitoring Oracle VM Agent................................................................................................... 3-3

3.6 Deploying Oracle VM Agent..................................................................................................... 3-3

3.7 Oracle VM Agent API ................................................................................................................ 3-3

3.7.1 Testing the Oracle VM Agent Connection....................................................................... 3-4

3.7.2 Remotely Starting a Guest with the Oracle VM Agent API .......................................... 3-4

iii

3.7.3 Remotely Stopping a Guest with the Oracle VM Agent API........................................ 3-5

3.8 Oracle VM Agent Utilities ......................................................................................................... 3-5

3.8.1 Monitoring a Guest with the Oracle VM Agent.............................................................. 3-5

3.8.2 Deleting a Guest with the Oracle VM Agent................................................................... 3-5

4 Creating a Guest

4.1 Supported Guest Operating Systems....................................................................................... 4-1

4.2 Mounting an ISO......................................................................................................................... 4-3

4.3 Enabling Registration of Guests with Oracle VM Manager ................................................. 4-3

4.4 Creating a Guest Using a Template.......................................................................................... 4-3

4.5 Creating a Guest Using virt-install........................................................................................... 4-4

4.6 Creating a Paravirtualized Guest Manually ........................................................................... 4-7

4.6.1 Creating the Root File System............................................................................................ 4-7

4.6.2 Populating the Root File System........................................................................................ 4-8

4.6.3 Configuring the Guest......................................................................................................... 4-8

4.7 Creating a Hardware Virtualized Guest Manually ............................................................... 4-9

4.8 Converting a Hardware Virtualized Guest to a Paravirtualized Guest .......................... 4-11

4.9 Creating a Paravirtual Guest with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.8 or 3.9.......................... 4-14

4.10 Installing Paravirtual Drivers................................................................................................. 4-14

5 Domain Monitoring and Administration

5.1 Domain Lifecycle ........................................................................................................................ 5-1

5.2 Using the xm Command-Line Interface .................................................................................. 5-1

5.2.1 Monitoring Domains........................................................................................................... 5-2

5.2.2 Viewing Host Information ................................................................................................. 5-2

6 Domain Live Migration

6.1 Creating a Shared Virtual Disk for Live Migration ............................................................... 6-1

6.1.1 Creating a Shared Virtual Disk Using OCFS2 on iSCSI................................................. 6-1

6.1.2 Creating a Shared Virtual Disk Using OCFS2 on SAN.................................................. 6-3

6.1.3 Adding a Shared Virtual Disk Using NFS ....................................................................... 6-4

6.2 Migrating a Domain ................................................................................................................... 6-5

7 Managing Oracle VM Server Repositories

7.1 Oracle VM Server Repositories................................................................................................. 7-1

7.1.1 Repository Configuration File ........................................................................................... 7-1

7.1.2 Repository Mount Options................................................................................................. 7-1

7.1.3 Adding a Repository ........................................................................................................... 7-2

7.1.4 Removing a Repository....................................................................................................... 7-2

A Command-Line Tools

ovs-agent ..................................................................................................................................... A-2

virt-install.................................................................................................................................... A-3

xm................................................................................................................................................. A-7

B Oracle VM Server Configuration File

Oracle VM Server Configuration File ..................................................................................... B-2

C Guest Configuration Files

C.1 Configuration File Example 1 .................................................................................................. C-1

C.2 Configuration File Example 2 .................................................................................................. C-1

D Oracle VM Agent Architecture

D.1 Oracle VM Agent Architecture ................................................................................................ D-1

D.2 Oracle VM Agent Deployment ................................................................................................ D-2

E Troubleshooting

E.1 Debugging Tools ........................................................................................................................ E-1

E.1.1 Oracle VM Server Directories ........................................................................................... E-1

E.1.2 Oracle VM Server Log Files............................................................................................... E-2

E.1.3 Oracle VM Server Command-Line Tools........................................................................ E-2

E.2 Using DHCP ............................................................................................................................... E-2

E.3 Guest Console Access................................................................................................................ E-2

E.4 Cannot Display Graphical Installer When Creating Guests................................................ E-4

E.5 Hardware Virtualized Guest Console Not Displayed.......................................................... E-4

E.6 Setting the Guest’s Clock .......................................................................................................... E-5

E.7 Wallclock Time Skew Problems............................................................................................... E-5

E.8 Mouse Pointer Tracking Problems .......................................................................................... E-5

E.9 Hardware Virtualized Guest Killed ........................................................................................ E-6

E.10 Hardware Virtualized Guest Devices Not Working as Expected....................................... E-6

E.11 Hardware Virtualized Guest Windows Installation............................................................. E-6

E.12 TAP Disks with Paravirtualized Guests................................................................................. E-7

E.13 CD-ROM Image Not Found ..................................................................................................... E-7

E.14 Firewall Blocks NFS Access...................................................................................................... E-7

E.15 Migrating Domains.................................................................................................................... E-7

E.16 Attaching to a Console with the Grub Boot Loader.............................................................. E-7

Glossary

Index

The preface contains information on how to use the Oracle VM Server User’s Guide. The areas discussed are:

■ Audience

■ Documentation Accessibility

■ Command Syntax

■ Related Documents

■ Conventions

Audience

The Oracle VM Server User’s Guide is intended for system administrators and end users who wish to learn the fundamentals of virtualization and the provision of virtual guest operating systems.

Documentation Accessibility

Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible, with good usability, to the disabled community. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Accessibility standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For more information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/.

Preface

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

Screen readers may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, some screen readers may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.

Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle does not own or control. Oracle neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.

vii

TTY Access to Oracle Support Services

Oracle provides dedicated Text Telephone (TTY) access to Oracle Support Services within the United States of America 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. For TTY support, call 800.446.2398. Outside the United States, call +1.407.458.2479.

Command Syntax

UNIX command syntax appears in monospace font. The dollar character ($), number sign (#), or percent character (%) are UNIX command prompts. Do not enter them as part of the command. The following command syntax conventions are used in this guide:

Convention Description

backslash \ A backslash is the UNIX command continuation character. It is used in

braces { } Braces indicate required items:

brackets [ ] Brackets indicate optional items:

ellipses ... Ellipses indicate an arbitrary number of similar items:

italics Italic type indicates a variable. Substitute a value for the variable:

vertical line | A vertical line indicates a choice within braces or brackets:

Conventions

The following text conventions are used in this document:

Convention Meaning

boldface Boldface type indicates graphical user interface elements associated

italic Italic type indicates book titles, emphasis, or placeholder variables for

monospace Monospace type indicates commands within a paragraph, URLs, code

with an action, or terms defined in text or the glossary.

which you supply particular values.

in examples, text that appears on the screen, or text that you enter.

This Chapter provides introductory information on virtualization. It discusses why you would want to use virtualization, the technology provided, and features of Oracle VM. It contains the following sections:

■ What is Virtualization?

■ Why Virtualize?

■ Xen™ Technology

■ Oracle VM

1.1 What is Virtualization?

Virtualization is the ability to run multiple virtual machines on a single piece of hardware. The hardware runs software which enables you to install multiple operating systems which are able to run simultaneously and independently, in their own secure environment, with minimal reduction in performance. Each virtual machine has its own virtual CPU, network interfaces, storage and operating system.

1Introduction to Virtualization

1.2 Why Virtualize?

With increased server provisioning in the datacenter, several factors play a role in stifling growth. Increased power and cooling costs, physical space constraints, man power and interconnection complexity all contribute significantly to the cost and feasibility of continued expansion.

Commodity hardware manufacturers have begun to address some of these concerns by shifting their design goals. Rather than focus solely on raw gigahertz performance, manufacturers have enhanced the feature sets of CPUs and chip sets to include lower wattage CPUs, multiple cores per CPU die, advanced power management, and a range of virtualization features. By employing appropriate software to enable these features, several advantages are realized:

■ Server Consolidation: By combining workloads from a number of physical hosts

into a single host, a reduction in servers can be achieved as well as a corresponding decrease in interconnect hardware. Traditionally, these workloads would need to be specially crafted, partially isolated and well behaved, but with new virtualization techniques none of these requirements are necessary.

■ Reduction of Complexity: Infrastructure costs are massively reduced by removing

the need for physical hardware, and networking. Instead of having a large number of physical computers, all networked together, consuming power and

Introduction to Virtualization 1-1

Xen™ Technology

administration costs, fewer computers can be used to achieve the same goal. Administration and physical setup is less time consuming and costly.

■ Isolation: Virtual machines run in sand-boxed environments. They cannot access

each other, so if one virtual machine performs poorly, or crashes, it does not affect any other virtual machine.

■ Platform Uniformity: In a virtualized environment, a broad, heterogeneous array

of hardware components is distilled into a uniform set of virtual devices presented to each guest operating system. This reduces the impact across the IT organization: from support, to documentation, to tools engineering.

■ Legacy Support: With traditional bare-metal operating system installations, when

the hardware vendor replaces a component of a system, the operating system vendor is required to make a corresponding change to enable the new hardware (for example, an ethernet card). As an operating system ages, the operating system vendor may no longer provide hardware enabling updates. In a virtualized operating system, the hardware remains constant for as long as the virtual environment is in place, regardless of any changes occurring in the real hardware, including full replacement.

1.3 Xen™ Technology

The Xen hypervisor is a small, lightweight, software virtual machine monitor, for x86-compatible computers. The Xen hypervisor securely executes multiple virtual machines on one physical system. Each virtual machine has its own guest operating system with almost native performance. The Xen hypervisor was originally created by researchers at Cambridge University, and derived from work done on the Linux kernel.

The Xen hypervisor has been improved and included with Oracle VM Server.

1.4 Oracle VM

Oracle VM is a platform that provides a fully equipped environment for better leveraging the benefits of virtualization technology. Oracle VM enables you to deploy operating systems and application software within a supported virtualization environment. The components of Oracle VM are:

■ Oracle VM Manager: Provides the user interface, which is a standard ADF

(Application Development Framework) web application, to manage Oracle VM Servers, virtual machines, and resources. Use Oracle VM Manager to:

– Create virtual machines from installation media or from a virtual machine

template

– Delete virtual machines – Power off virtual machines – Upload virtual machines – Deploy virtual machines – Perform live migration of virtual machines – Import and manage ISOs – Create and manage virtual machine templates – Create and manage sharable hard disks

1-2 Oracle VM Server User’s Guide

Oracle VM

■ Oracle VM Server: A self-contained virtualization environment designed to

provide a lightweight, secure, server-based platform for running virtual machines. Oracle VM Server is based upon an updated version of the underlying Xen hypervisor technology, and includes Oracle VM Agent.

■ Oracle VM Agent: Installed with Oracle VM Server. It communicates with Oracle

VM Manager for management of virtual machines.

Figure 1–1, "Oracle VM Architecture" shows the components of Oracle VM.

Figure 1–1 Oracle VM Architecture

This book discusses Oracle VM Server, and the Oracle VM Agent. See the Oracle VM Manager Installation Guide and the Oracle VM Manager User’s Guide for information on

installing, and using Oracle VM Manager, and managing Oracle VM Servers.

Introduction to Virtualization 1-3

Oracle VM

1-4 Oracle VM Server User’s Guide

2Oracle VM Server

This Chapter contains an overview of Oracle VM Server and the underlying hypervisor, the components of virtual machines and domains, and gets you started with the tools to create and manage guests. This Chapter contains:

■ Oracle VM Server

■ Hypervisor

■ Domains, Guests and Virtual Machines

■ Management Domain

■ Domains

■ Hardware Virtualization Vs. Paravirtualization

■ Creating Virtual Machines

■ Managing Domains

2.1 Oracle VM Server

Oracle VM Server includes an updated version of the underlying Xen™ hypervisor technology, and the Oracle VM Agent. It also includes a Linux kernel with support for a broad array of devices, file systems, and software RAID volume management. The Linux kernel is run as dom0 to manage one or more domU virtual machines, each of which could be Linux, Solaris or Microsoft Windows. Figure 2–1, "Oracle VM Server" shows the components of Oracle VM Server.

Figure 2–1 Oracle VM Server

Oracle VM Server 2-1

Hypervisor

2.2 Hypervisor

Oracle VM Server is architected such that the hypervisor (or monitor, or Virtual Machine Manager) is the only fully privileged entity in the system, but is also extremely small and tightly written. It controls only the most basic resources of the system, including CPU and memory usage, privilege checks, and hardware interrupts.

2.3 Domains, Guests and Virtual Machines

The terms domain, guest and virtual machine are often used interchangeably, but they have subtle differences. A domain is a configurable set of resources, including memory, virtual CPUs, network devices and disk devices, in which virtual machines run. A domain is granted virtual resources and can be started, stopped and rebooted independently. A guest is a virtualized operating system running within a domain. A guest operating system may be paravirtualized or hardware virtualized. Multiple guests can run on the same Oracle VM Server. A virtual machine is a guest operating system and its associated application software.

Oracle VM Server guest operating systems may run in one of two modes, paravirtualized or hardware virtualized. In paravirtualized mode, the operating system guest kernel is recompiled to be made aware of the virtual environment. This allows the paravirtualized guest to run at near native speed, since most memory, disk and network accesses are optimized for maximum performance.

Figure 2–2 Virtual Machine Architecture

If support for hardware virtualization is available (either Intel VT or AMD SVM), the guest operating system may run completely unmodified. This hardware virtualized fully-virtualized guest is carefully monitored and trapped by Oracle VM Server when

2-2 Oracle VM Server User’s Guide

any instruction is executed which would violate the isolation with other guests or dom0. In the current implementation, there may be performance penalty for certain types of guests and access types, but hardware virtualization also allows many Microsoft Windows™ operating systems and legacy operating systems to run unmodified.

2.4 Management Domain

Most of the responsibility of hardware detection in a Oracle VM Server environment is passed to the management domain, referred to as domain zero (or dom0). The dom0 kernel is actually a complete Linux kernel with support for a broad array of devices, file systems, and software RAID and volume management. In Oracle VM Server, the dom0 is tasked with providing access to much of the system hardware, creating, destroying and controlling guest operating systems, and presenting those guests with a set of common virtual hardware.

2.5 Domains

Domains other than the management domain (dom0) are referred to as domU. These domains are unprivileged domains with no direct access to the hardware or device drivers. Each domU is started by Oracle VM Server in dom0.

Managing Domains

2.6 Hardware Virtualization Vs. Paravirtualization

Oracle VM Server uses paravirtualization, not binary translation. That is, the source code of the operating system is modified to support virtualization.

Binary translation is neither faster, nor slower, than hardware virtualization. Whether binary translation or hardware virtualization is more efficient than paravirtualization depends on the implementation of the binary translation and hardware virtualization, and the applications and operating system running as a guest on the system.

Binary translation and hardware virtualization, is required if you are using an operating system where it is impractical to do paravirtualization, for example, if the source code is not available such as for Microsoft Windows™, or the user base is not large enough to sustain a paravirtualization effort such as for the Linux 2.4.x kernel. In many situations, paravirtualization may perform better than binary translation as operations that cause a hypervisor interaction can be grouped and reused, rather than each event requiring its own hypervisor interaction.

2.7 Creating Virtual Machines

Create virtual machines (guests) using the Oracle VM Server virt-install command-line tool, or using a Virtual Machine Template in Oracle VM Manager. See Chapter 4,

"Creating a Guest" and the Oracle VM Manager User’s Guide for more information.

2.8 Managing Domains

Manage domains using the Oracle VM Server xm command-line tool, or using Oracle VM Manager. See Chapter 5, "Domain Monitoring and Administration" and the Oracle VM Manager User’s Guide for more information.

Migrate domains using the xm migrate command. See Chapter 6, "Domain Live

Migration" for more information.

Oracle VM Server 2-3

Configuring Oracle VM Server

2.9 Configuring Oracle VM Server

You can configure Oracle VM Server using the configuration file. The configuration file options are available in the /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp file. When you make changes to this file, you must restart Oracle VM Server for the changes to take effect. See

Appendix B, "Oracle VM Server Configuration File" for more information on the

configuration options.

2.10 Managing Oracle VM Server Repositories

You can create new Oracle VM Server repositories for storage of ISOs, guest, and live migration. See Chapter 7, "Managing Oracle VM Server Repositories" for more information.

2-4 Oracle VM Server User’s Guide

3Oracle VM Agent

Oracle VM Manager communicates with Oracle VM Agent to create and manage guests on an Oracle VM Server. Oracle VM Agent is installed and configured during the installation of Oracle VM Server. You do not need to install Oracle VM Agent separately. Oracle VM Agent is installed into:

/opt/ovs-agent-2.2

Installation logs are located in:

/opt/ovs-agent-2.2/logs/ovs_trace.log

This Chapter discusses the configuration and control of Oracle VM Agent. It contains:

■ Oracle VM Agent Command-Line Tool

■ Configuring Oracle VM Agent

■ Starting Oracle VM Agent

■ Stopping Oracle VM Agent

■ Monitoring Oracle VM Agent

■ Deploying Oracle VM Agent

■ Oracle VM Agent API

■ Oracle VM Agent Utilities

See Appendix D, "Oracle VM Agent Architecture" for more detailed information.

3.1 Oracle VM Agent Command-Line Tool

The ovs-agent command-line tool allows you to configure and control Oracle VM Agent. The following sections discuss using the ovs-agent command-line tool. See

"ovs-agent" in Appendix A, "Command-Line Tools" for more details on the ovs-agent

command-line tool options.

3.2 Configuring Oracle VM Agent

Oracle VM Agent is configured during installation. A default user is created with the username admin, and the password you set during installation.

You can change the default configuration with the Oracle VM Agent configuration script, ovs-agent. To configure Oracle VM Agent:

1. As root, run the Oracle VM Agent configuration script:

Oracle VM Agent 3-1

Configuring Oracle VM Agent

service ovs-agent configure

2. You are prompted whether you want to enable SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) in

XMLRPC.

;ssl support -;enable ssl support in xmlrpc transport?(enable/disable) ssl=disable ssl

SSL support is disabled by default. Enter enable to enable support, or disable to disable it. If you do not enter anything, the setting is not changed. Press Enter.

3. You are prompted to enter the IP addresses that are allowed to access to the

computer.

;network access control by ip -;rules := if addr.match(allow) and not addr.match(deny): return True ;pattern items delimited by comma and could be ;10.1.1.1 #single ip ;10.1.1.* #range ;10.1.1.1/24 #range ;default to allow all, deny none allow=* allow=

Enter * (asterisk) to allow all IP addresses access to the computer. Alternatively, enter a list of IP addresses for computers for which you want to allow access, while restricting all others. The default is to allow all computers to access the computer (*). For example, to allow all computers in the domain example.com, enter

*.example.com

Press Enter.

4. You are prompted to enter the IP addresses that are denied access to the computer.

now allow=*.example.com

deny= deny=

Leave this field empty (does not deny any IP addresses), or enter * to deny all IP addresses access to the computer. Alternatively, enter a list of IP addresses for which you want to deny access to the computer, while allowing all others. The default is to deny no computers access to the computer.

Press Enter.

5. You are prompted whether you want to change the Oracle VM Agent password.

now deny=

would you like to modify password to communicate with agent?[y/N]

Enter y to change the Oracle VM Agent password, or N to continue without changing the password. Press Enter.

6. Restart Oracle VM Agent for the configuration changes to take effect.

service ovs-agent restart

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3.3 Starting Oracle VM Agent

Oracle VM Agent is started automatically when the computer starts. To manually start Oracle VM Agent, enter

service ovs-agent start

Oracle VM Agent is started. Alternatively, if Oracle VM Agent is already running, you can stop and restart it with

the command

service ovs-agent restart

Oracle VM Agent is stopped, and restarted.

3.4 Stopping Oracle VM Agent

To stop Oracle VM Agent, enter

service ovs-agent stop

Oracle VM Agent is stopped.

Oracle VM Agent API

Note: When Oracle VM Agent is stopped, Oracle VM Manager

cannot manage Oracle VM Server or the guests running on it.

3.5 Monitoring Oracle VM Agent

To get information on the Oracle VM Agent daemon, enter

service ovs-agent status

Information on the Oracle VM Agent daemon is displayed.

3.6 Deploying Oracle VM Agent

You can use Oracle VM Manager to configure the deployment of Oracle VM Agent. See the Oracle VM Manager User’s Guide for information on configuring Oracle VM Agent with Oracle VM Manager.

3.7 Oracle VM Agent API

An application programming interface (API) is available for Oracle VM Agent. You can use the Oracle VM Agent API to perform a number of actions on guests and on the Oracle VM Server. The Oracle VM Agent API uses the XML-RPC protocol. To see a list of the XML-RPC functions available, enter the following URL in a web browser:

https://hostname:8899/

The hostname refers to an Oracle VM Server. A list of methods and parameters are displayed.

See the XML-RPC protocol specification for more information on how to use XML-RPC.

The following sections give examples of common Oracle VM Agent API functions. The examples are not extensive, but serve to give you an idea of how to use the API.

Oracle VM Agent 3-3

Oracle VM Agent API

■ Testing the Oracle VM Agent Connection

■ Remotely Starting a Guest with the Oracle VM Agent API

■ Remotely Stopping a Guest with the Oracle VM Agent API

Note: The following sections discuss commands that must be run

from a computer on which Oracle VM Server is installed. The functionality discussed is to be used to communicate from one Oracle VM Server to another Oracle VM Server.

3.7.1 Testing the Oracle VM Agent Connection

You can use the do_rpc.py utility to remotely test the connection to Oracle VM Agent from another computer with Oracle VM Server installed. The following command tests the connection to Oracle VM Agent:

# /opt/ovs-agent-2.2/utils/do_rpc.py https://username:password@hostname:8899 echo hello

Where username and password refer to the Oracle VM Agent login credentials, and hostname refers to the host name of the computer on which Oracle VM Agent is

installed. If the connection is successful, the following is displayed:

echo [’hello’] => success:echo=hello

If this command does not display any echo information, or displays an error, check your network connection. The following error is displayed if the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) facility is disabled.

socket error! code=1, msg=error:140770FC:SSL routines:SSL23_GET_SERVER_ HELLO:unknown protocol

To enable SSL, edit the /etc/ovs-agent/agent.ini file and set the ssl parameter to enable.

ssl=enable

Restart the Oracle VM Agent for the changes to take effect:

# /sbin/service ovs-agent restart

3.7.2 Remotely Starting a Guest with the Oracle VM Agent API

You can use the do_rpc.py utility to remotely start a guest on an Oracle VM Server from another computer with Oracle VM Server installed. The following command remotely starts a guest on an Oracle VM Server:

# /opt/ovs-agent-2.2/utils/do_rpc.py https://username:password@hostname:8899 start_vm /OVS/running_pool/guest

Where username and password refer to the Oracle VM Agent login credentials, hostname refers to the host name of the computer on which Oracle VM Agent is

installed, and guest refers to the name of the guest. If the guest starts without error, the following is displayed:

start_vm ['/OVS/running_pool/guest'] =>success=ip=10.1.1.1

3-4 Oracle VM Server User’s Guide

3.7.3 Remotely Stopping a Guest with the Oracle VM Agent API

You can use the do_rpc.py utility to remotely stop a guest on an Oracle VM Server from another computer with Oracle VM Server installed. The following command remotely stops a guest on an Oracle VM Server:

# /opt/ovs-agent-2.2/utils/do_rpc.py https://username:password@hostname:8899 stop_ vm /OVS/running_pool/guest

Where username and password refer to the Oracle VM Agent login credentials, hostname refers to the host name of the computer on which Oracle VM Agent is

installed, and guest refers to the name of the guest. If the guest stops without error, the following is displayed:

stop_vm ['/OVS/running_pool/guest'] =>success

3.8 Oracle VM Agent Utilities

A number of utility scripts are included with Oracle VM Agent, and you can use these to monitor and manage guests. The utility scripts discussed in this section enable you to perform actions such as:

Oracle VM Agent Utilities

■ Monitoring a Guest with the Oracle VM Agent

■ Deleting a Guest with the Oracle VM Agent

3.8.1 Monitoring a Guest with the Oracle VM Agent

You can use the db_kfv.py utility to monitor a guest. To check the status of a guest, enter:

# /opt/ovs-agent-2.2/db/db_kfv.py vm guest status

The status of the guest is displayed. For example, if the guest is not running, the following is displayed:

/OVS/running_pool/guest status(now)=>DOWN

3.8.2 Deleting a Guest with the Oracle VM Agent

You can use the db_del.py utility to delete a guest. To delete a guest, enter:

# /opt/ovs-agent-2.2/db/db_del.py database guest

For example, to delete a guest named myguest, enter:

# /opt/ovs-agent-2.2/db/db_del.py vm myguest

The entries in /OVS/running_pool/myguest are removed and the guest deleted.

Oracle VM Agent 3-5

Oracle VM Agent Utilities

3-6 Oracle VM Server User’s Guide

4Creating a Guest

This Chapter contains information on how to create a guest operating system. You can create paravirtualized guests and hardware virtualized guests using a guest template, or using the command-line tool virt-install. virt-install can be used as an interactive shell, or all parameters can be given at the same time from the command-line. You can enter multiple parameters to the virt-install tool in the format:

virt-install [options]

Appendix A, "Command-Line Tools" lists the virt-install command-line tool

parameters. You can also create guest on Oracle VM Server using Oracle VM Manager. See the

Oracle VM Manager User’s Guide for information on creating guests with Oracle VM Manager.

This Chapter contains:

■ Supported Guest Operating Systems

■ Mounting an ISO

■ Creating a Guest Using a Template

■ Creating a Guest Using virt-install

■ Creating a Paravirtualized Guest Manually

■ Creating a Hardware Virtualized Guest Manually

■ Converting a Hardware Virtualized Guest to a Paravirtualized Guest

■ Installing Paravirtual Drivers

4.1 Supported Guest Operating Systems

The guest you create must be one of the following configurations.

Table 4–1 64-bit Hypervisor Supported Guest Operating Systems

Paravirtualized

Guest Operating Systems

RedHat Enterprise Linux

3.x

32-bit

Ye s N o Ye s Ye s

Paravirtualized 64-bit

Hardware Virtualized 32-bit

Hardware Virtualized 64-bit

Creating a Guest 4-1

Supported Guest Operating Systems

Table 4–1 (Cont.) 64-bit Hypervisor Supported Guest Operating Systems

Guest Operating Systems

Paravirtualized 32-bit

Paravirtualized 64-bit

Hardware Virtualized 32-bit

Hardware Virtualized 64-bit

Oracle Enterprise Linux

Yes Yes Yes Yes

Release 4.x RedHat Enterprise Linux

4.x

Oracle Enterprise Linux

Ye s

Ye s Ye s Ye s

Release 5.x RedHat Enterprise Linux

5.x

The xm save and xm restore commands are not supported.

Oracle Enterprise Linux kernels are available on the Oracle VM Server CD for Release 3 Update 9, and Release 4 Update 4 onwards. The kernels are also available on the Oracle Enterprise Linux Network (ULN).

Table 4–2 32-bit Hypervisor Supported Guest Operating Systems

Guest Operating Systems Paravirtualized 32-bit Hardware Virtualized 32-bit

RedHat Enterprise Linux 3.x Yes Yes

Oracle Enterprise Linux Release 4.x RedHat Enterprise Linux 4.x

Oracle Enterprise Linux Release 5.x RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.x

Ye s Ye s

The following guest operating systems have been tested and no issues have been found other than as stated in the Oracle VM documentation.

Table 4–3 Tested Guest Operating Systems

Guest Operating Systems Hardware Virtualized 32-bit Hardware Virtualized 64-bit

Microsoft Windows™ 2000 Yes Yes

Microsoft Windows™ 2003 Yes Yes

Microsoft Windows™ XP Pro Yes Yes

Microsoft Windows™ Vista Yes Yes

There are a number of ways to create virtual guests:

■ Using a template

■ Using the virt-install command-line tool interactively

■ Using the virt-install command-line tool and passing all parameters at the same

time from the command-line

■ Manually

Before you create a guest, you should have access to a guest installation tree, or a guest template. You will also need a host IP address, and a hostname.

4-2 Oracle VM Server User’s Guide

4.2 Mounting an ISO

You cannot create a guest from a local hard disk or CD-ROM using the virt-install command-line tool. You can, however, create an installation tree on the host operating system, and mount it as an NFS share. For example

# mkdir -p /el/EL5-x86 # mount -o ro,loop /path/to/Enterprise-R5-x86-dvd.iso /el/EL5-x86 # exportfs *:/el/EL5-x86/

When you create the guest using the virt-install command-line tool, enter the installation location as:

nfs:example.com:/el/EL5-x86

Similarly, to set up an installation tree that can be accessed via HTTP on a server named example.com, enter

# cd /var/www/html # mkdir EL5-x86 # mount -o ro,loop /path/to/Enterprise-R5-x86-dvd.iso EL5-x86

When you create the guest using the virt-install command-line tool, enter the installation location as:

Creating a Guest Using a Template

http://example.com/EL5-x86

4.3 Enabling Registration of Guests with Oracle VM Manager

You can create a guest in Oracle VM Server and manage it using Oracle VM Manager. To add guests created with the virt-install command-line tool, or created manually, you must create the guests with the following configuration:

1. Create a directory for your guest, for example

mkdir /OVS/running_pool/myguest

The name of the directory should be the same as the guest name.

2. Create the disk image under the new directory.

The guest is ready to import into Oracle VM Manager.

4.4 Creating a Guest Using a Template

You can create a guest using a template. You can also register a template in Oracle VM Manager and use it to create guests. See the Oracle VM Manager User’s Guide for information about using templates with Oracle VM Manager.

A template is compressed as a .tgz file. A template must contain the basic guest configuration files, vm.cfg and system.img. Templates are often hosted on an FTP or HTTP server. The following example shows you how to download an Oracle Enterprise Linux template from an HTTP server, and use it to create a guest.

1. Download the template into the a directory on the Oracle VM Server computer.

This example uses the directory /OVS.

cd /OVS/seed_pool wget http://example.com/seeds/OVM_EL4U5_X86_HVM.tgz

Uncompress the template:

Creating a Guest 4-3

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