Ubuntu Howto: Install Xen

August 31, 2007 at 16:00 · Tags: Debian, Linux, Ubuntu, virtualization, Vista, Xen

Xen Logo For a long time I have tested many different virtualization techniques; Xen, VMWare, and Microsoft VM. Until now I’m able to conclude that all of them are usable on my desktop machine, but both VMWare and Microsoft’s VM are more sluggish that Xen. This weekend I deployed my first server based on the upcoming Ubuntu and Xen. Everything worked out of the box

Here is what I did to install Xen on Ubuntu:
sudo aptitude install ubuntu-xen-desktop bridge-utils

Boot into the newly installed Xen enabled Ubuntu Linux kernel
sudo reboot

Then adjusted the network settings in /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp. Enabling the network bridge:
(network-script network-bridge)

Install xen-tools:
apt-get install xen-tools
Xen tools is a collection package containing different tools related to Xen, a virtual machine creator etc.

Edit adjust the kernel and initrd parameters in /etc/xen-tools/xen-tools.conf to match the ones on your system:

Find out what the kernel image and initrd is named by:
ls /boot/vmlinuz* /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.19-4-generic

and

ls /boot/initrd*
/boot/initrd.img-2.6.19-4-generic

Adjust the lines
# # Default kernel and ramdisk to use for the virtual servers # kernel = /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.19-4-generic initrd = /boot/initrd.img-2.6.19-4-generic

Further adjust the xen-tools.conf to this settings:
dir = /home/xen debootstrap = 1 size = 4Gb # Disk image size. memory = 128Mb # Memory size swap = 128Mb # Swap size fs = ext3 # use the EXT3 filesystem for the disk image. dist = edgy # Default distribution to install. image = sparse # Specify sparse vs. full disk images.

Create a home for all the coming virtual Xen guests:
mkdir /home/xen mkdir /home/xen/domains

And then ready to create a virtual machine – guest, simply by:
xen-create-image -hostname=mailserver -ip=10.0.0.21 -netmask=255.255.255.0 -gateway=10.0.0.1 -passwd

Afterwards I was able to fire up the newly created virtual machine with:
xm create mailserver.cfg

If an error like this shows up
Error: Device 0 (vif) could not be connected. Backend device not found.
You should check your that you have enabled the network bridge, “(network-script network-bridge)”, in /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp and restarted the xen deamon by /etc/init.d/xend restart

When up and running either “xm list” or “xentop” can be used to get an overview of what instance are currently running


ray:# sudo xm list
Name                                      ID Mem(MiB) VCPUs State   Time(s)
Domain-0                                   0      874     1 r-----    657.9
mailserver                                 3      128     1 -b----      8.0

Read more on Xen and Ubuntu on the XenVirtualMachine wiki page at the Ubuntu Wiki

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13 Comments »

noname said,

September 19, 2008 @ 23:46

why the heck there is no xenman in Hardy???
i can’t install xen on hardy since this package is missing.
One Go said,

November 2, 2008 @ 16:58

“why the heck there is no xenman in Hardy???
i canâ€™t install xen on hardy since this package is missing.”

Because it’s now already included when you install the Xen.
One Go said,

November 2, 2008 @ 17:00

“why the heck there is no xenman in Hardy???
i canâ€™t install xen on hardy since this package is missing.”

-Because now it’s already included when you install the Xen into Hardy 8.04!
AoYuan said,

November 6, 2008 @ 16:58

My cpu dosen’t support pae. After I install XEN by your instruction, I restart the system in server mode, then the warning is given: “CPU doesn’t support PAE”. How can I sovle this problem??
Sriram said,

November 28, 2008 @ 3:02

I installed Xen, and rebooted.. It said some stuff when the system was booting,.. but I cannot find the folder /etc/xen !?!?

Can u please help me ?

Or is there anything I need to do before following the above steps…

like apt install xen .. etc etc etc
Robert Shepherd said,

January 6, 2009 @ 17:10

“My cpu dosenâ€™t support pae. After I install XEN by your instruction, I restart the system in server mode, then the warning is given: â€œCPU doesnâ€™t support PAEâ€. How can I sovle this problem??”

PAE stands for Physical Address Extention, and it’s for addressing memory above 4G I believe (might be 2G not sure). At any rate it’s usually a setting in the BIOS. You will have to consult the documentation for your motherboard.
Assertions and Deviations :: Virtualization :: Blank or black screen when booting Ubuntu on Xen said,

May 29, 2009 @ 5:31

[...] Aspire, with a generic Intel 960 series motherboard and a lack-tastic X3100 video card). There are various tutorials and howtos on doing this, so it went [...]
ha tran said,

August 3, 2009 @ 20:14

Hi,
I got 2 problems.
Firstly when i type : xm create …
It shown out an error: ERROR Internal error: Could not obtain handle on privileged command interface (2 = No such file or directory)
Second, when i try to restart xen with /etc/init.d/xend restart an error displayed: grep: /proc/xen/capabilities: No such file or directory
I googled and found out that i need to boot with Xen kernel. However i cannot find it. Here is some information in my /boot/grub/menu
title Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-14-server
uuid 6a12d672-ad34-4ba2-82ab-a87be4c15a8e
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-14-server root=UUID=6a12d672-ad34-4ba2-82ab-a87be4c15a8e ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-14-server
quiet

title Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-14-server (recovery mode)
uuid 6a12d672-ad34-4ba2-82ab-a87be4c15a8e
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-14-server root=UUID=6a12d672-ad34-4ba2-82ab-a87be4c15a8e ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-14-server

title Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-14-generic
uuid 6a12d672-ad34-4ba2-82ab-a87be4c15a8e
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-14-generic root=UUID=6a12d672-ad34-4ba2-82ab-a87be4c15a8e ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-14-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-14-generic (recovery mode)
uuid 6a12d672-ad34-4ba2-82ab-a87be4c15a8e
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-14-generic root=UUID=6a12d672-ad34-4ba2-82ab-a87be4c15a8e ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-14-generic

title Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic
uuid 6a12d672-ad34-4ba2-82ab-a87be4c15a8e
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=UUID=6a12d672-ad34-4ba2-82ab-a87be4c15a8e ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic (recovery mode)
uuid 6a12d672-ad34-4ba2-82ab-a87be4c15a8e
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=UUID=6a12d672-ad34-4ba2-82ab-a87be4c15a8e ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic

title Ubuntu 9.04, memtest86+
uuid 6a12d672-ad34-4ba2-82ab-a87be4c15a8e
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet
joe_eis said,

September 11, 2009 @ 12:11

http://www.nabble.com/grep:–proc-xen-capabilities:-No-such-file-or-directory-td24550003.html
Xen no Ubuntu - dando erro! said,

January 8, 2010 @ 19:02

[...] [...]
Varun Pandey said,

March 1, 2010 @ 5:24

Hi,
Nice Article, I am trying to set up private cloud using XEN and EUCALYPTUS. I went through this procedure and every thing was working fine till
xm create mailserver.cfg

xm or xend command is giving following error:
—————————————————————————————

ERROR Internal error: Could not obtain handle on privileged command interface (2 = No such file or directory)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/sbin/xm”, line 8, in
from xen.xm import main
File “/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/xen/xm/main.py”, line 61, in
xc = xen.lowlevel.xc.xc()
xen.lowlevel.xc.Error: (1, ‘Internal error’, ‘Could not obtain handle on privileged command interface (2 = No such file or directory)’)

————————————————————————————–

I am logged on as a super user in the PAE kernel. Still the handler of the privileged method xc() is missing.
Could you please Help me with this. Its been 4 days since i started installing XEN… Thanx in advance
Varun Pandey said,

March 1, 2010 @ 5:38

Hi,
Nice Article, I am trying to set up private cloud using XEN and EUCALYPTUS. I went through this procedure and every thing was working fine till I use xm or xend command is giving following error:
———————————————————————–

ERROR Internal error: Could not obtain handle on privileged command interface (2 = No such file or directory)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/sbin/xm”, line 8, in
from xen.xm import main
File “/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/xen/xm/main.py”, line 61, in
xc = xen.lowlevel.xc.xc()
xen.lowlevel.xc.Error: (1, ‘Internal error’, ‘Could not obtain handle on privileged command interface (2 = No such file or directory)’)

———————————————————————–

I am logged on as a super user in the PAE kernel. Still the handler of the privileged method xc() is missing.
Could you please Help me with this. Its been 4 days since i started installing XEN… Thanx in advance
Madhu said,

April 2, 2010 @ 13:16

Hi Guys,
I have the same error . I am installing it on Hardy as well and I get the exact same error. Were you able to solve your problems ?
end
ERROR Internal error: Could not obtain handle on privileged command interface (2 = No such file or directory)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/sbin/xend”, line 44, in
from xen.xend.server import SrvDaemon
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/xen/xend/server/SrvDaemon.py”, line 26, in
import relocate
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/xen/xend/server/relocate.py”, line 26, in
from xen.xend import XendDomain
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/xen/xend/XendDomain.py”, line 35, in
from xen.xend import XendOptions, XendCheckpoint, XendDomainInfo
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/xen/xend/XendCheckpoint.py”, line 20, in
from xen.xend import balloon, sxp, image
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/xen/xend/image.py”, line 36, in
xc = xen.lowlevel.xc.xc()
xen.lowlevel.xc.Error: (1, ‘Internal error’, ‘Could not obtain handle on privileged command interface (2 = No such file or directory)’)

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