Mailing List Archive: Xen: Users

running xcp (or xenserver) from usb driver or SD card

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informatique.src at gmail

Apr 14, 2012, 12:18 AM

Post #1 of 3 (276 views)
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running xcp (or xenserver) from usb driver or SD card

Hi,
Do you think it's possible to run Xenserver/XCP or xen from an usb drive or
memory card like it's possible for vmware please ? Is it recommended ? Are
there any performance issue :-) ? I would like to dedicate all of the
local storage to hosting VMs only.

Looking at xen/xenserver/xcp doc, i was wondering why there's so few
tutorial on installing them on usb drive.

Thanks !

alk at ondore

Apr 16, 2012, 8:01 AM

Post #2 of 3 (252 views)
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Re: running xcp (or xenserver) from usb driver or SD card [In reply to]

Hello.

El 14/04/12 02:18, insrc escribió:
> Do you think it's possible to run Xenserver/XCP or xen from an usb drive
> or memory card like it's possible for vmware please ? Is it recommended
> ? Are there any performance issue :-) ? I would like to dedicate all
> of the local storage to hosting VMs only.
Yes, it is quite possible. Can't say much about real performance, I have
not went farther than a proof of concept myself, but i do not expect it
to be an issue. It will respond slower to control commands, but the VM's
should run ok.

> Looking at xen/xenserver/xcp doc, i was wondering why there's so few
> tutorial on installing them on usb drive.
You just install it normally, using USB as installation media.

Is the USB flash memory is smaller than 10G, you will need to patch
installer's initrd (it has a hardcoded limit), here is a reference:
http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/show/1168
Note that the partition size should be less than half of the size of the
flash drive, because by default the installer creates two identical
partitions on it. I used "root_size = 1792" for a "4GB" drive.

I ended up with the environment to deploy XCP automatically via PXE. I
use PXE boot a lot, between other things it avoids the re-creation a
bootable ISO when i alter initrd. Here the references I have used:

# customize installation initrd:
http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/show/1168
http://blog.mybox.ro/2010/05/12/how-to-change-files-in-a-initrd-image/

# prepare answers file:
http://docs.vmd.citrix.com/XenServer/4.0.1/installation/apcs02.html
http://blog.vhowto.info/2010/10/06/installation-of-xenserver-5-6-via-pxe-part-2/
http://scnr.net/blog/index.php/archives/177

# configure pxe boot:
http://docs.vmd.citrix.com/XenServer/4.0.1/installation/apc.html
http://docs.vmd.citrix.com/XenServer/6.0.0/1.0/en_gb/installation.html#pxe_boot_install-pxe_answerfile

Greetings.

--
Alexandre Kouznetsov

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informatique.src at gmail

Apr 17, 2012, 12:00 AM

Post #3 of 3 (232 views)
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Re: running xcp (or xenserver) from usb driver or SD card [In reply to]

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 5:01 PM, Alexandre Kouznetsov <alk [at] ondore>wrote:

> Hello.
>
> El 14/04/12 02:18, insrc escribió:
>
> Do you think it's possible to run Xenserver/XCP or xen from an usb drive
>> or memory card like it's possible for vmware please ? Is it recommended
>> ? Are there any performance issue :-) ? I would like to dedicate all
>> of the local storage to hosting VMs only.
>>
> Yes, it is quite possible. Can't say much about real performance, I have
> not went farther than a proof of concept myself, but i do not expect it to
> be an issue. It will respond slower to control commands, but the VM's
> should run ok.
>
> Hi,
Thanks Alexandre for your help ! Will look at your links soon hopefully.
But as it seems that it's not common practice (or perhaps not recommended
?) to run it from usb, i won't go that road for now :(

I also read that when running xenserver/xcp from usb drive, one has to make
sure to send logs to a remote syslog server in order to avoid any
performance issue.

Anyway, thanks a lot !

Cheers,

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