Xen Howto: Install Windows

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This short guide describes how to install Windows XP or Windows 2003 Server on Xen. It provides an overview of the Debian Linux Etch installation, and detailed steps for installing and configuring Xen and starting the Windows XP or Windows 2003 Server
installation.

Requirements

First you need to install Xen on Debian Etch:

sudo apt-get install xen-linux-system-2.6.18-4-xen-686 libc6-xen bridge-utils

Boot into the newly installed Xen enabled 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 IO Emulation tools:

sudo apt-get install xen-ioemu-3.0.3-1

Create a directory for the virtual machine files e.g. /home/xen/domains/win01 and create a disk image for the virtual machine’s primary disk.

mkdir /home/xen
mkdir /home/xen/domains
mkdir /home/xen/domains/win01
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of= /home/xen/domains/win01/disk.img bs=1M count=4096

Establish a Xen machine Configuration file (/etc/xen/win01.cfg) like this

kernel = '/usr/lib/xen/boot/hvmloader'
builder = 'hvm'
memory = '256'
device_model='/usr/lib/xen/bin/qemu-dm'

# Disks
disk = [ 'file:/home/xen/domains/win01/disk.img,ioemu:hda,w',
'file:/home/cc/iso-images/WindowsXP-SP2/image.iso,ioemu:hdc:cdrom,r' ]

# Hostname
name = 'win01'

# Networking
vif = ['type=ioemu, bridge=xenbr0']

# Behaviour
boot='d'
vnc=1
vncviewer=1
sdl=0

The ready to fire up the new machine and start the Windows installation in a vnc terminal.

xm create win01.cfg

After the virtual machine is started – a VNC server port should be available on port 5900 at the Xen server’s IP, e.g. 192.168.1.102 – A VNC XEN Client session is depicted here.

Xen Windows Install VNC

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

For more on creating Xen virtual machines read this guide, which outlines the features of the xen-tools package.

Related posts:

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  2. Ubuntu Howto: Install Xen
  3. Installing Xen on Debian Etch 4.0
  4. Seamless Windows Applications on Ubuntu Linux Using VirtualBox
  5. Importing / Exporting Virtual Disk Images with Virtual Box
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3 Comments »

  1. University Update - Open Source - Xen Howto: Install Windows said,

    August 31, 2007 @ 18:56

    [...] YouTube Xen Howto: Install Windows » This Summary is from an article posted at .bootstrap on Friday, August 31, 2007 Xen Howto: Install Windows August 31, 2007 at 17:09 · Filed under Linux, Open Standards, Open Source, Xen, Vista, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora Xen Logo This short guide describes how to install Summary Provided by Technorati.comView Original Article at .bootstrap » 10 Most Recent News Articles About Open Source [...]

  2. JT Edwards said,

    September 5, 2008 @ 16:52

    THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

    This Guide is PERFECT…..

    Want to know whats really weird? Win2k3 RUNS faster on Xen than VMware WOW!

  3. 12345678 said,

    April 7, 2009 @ 15:43

    Please consider removing the booby-trap list of incoming search terms. I assume the intent is to help direct more people searching for this topic to find this page, but the end result is broken. Some poor sap searched for something similar to me and turned up here. Now, since his search is listed, MY search for “gentoo xen add bridge failed” finds HIS results and directs me here. And while your page does seem helpful for some people, for those of us searching for an explanation regarding “add bridge failed” it’s yet another page without the answer, and a tiny bit more frustration.

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