Update on Virtualization in Debian

IntroductionNews in testing/unstableQemu management GUIs

Xen and related tools in DebianThanks

Debian Virtualization – Update

Henning Sprang

Silpion IT Solutions GmbH/B1 Systems GmbH

2008-02-24 / FOSDEM 2008 – Brussels

Henning Sprang Debian Virtualization – Update



The speaker - Henning Sprang

Software developer, author, admin, consultantLinux since 1997In Debian: FAI team memberVirtualization: used different flavors, mainly software testingBook: “Xen. Virtualisierung unter Linux.” for OpensourcepressOther interests: Java(Spring, Hibernate, XML processing),agile/RAD web development(Rails, Django, . . . )




Outline1 Introduction2 News in testing/unstable

LibvirtVirt-ManagerVirtualboxOthers

3 Qemu management GUIs4 Xen and related tools in Debian

Core Xen packagesXen management – overviewXen-tools and related stuffGanetiXenman (project ConVirt)dtc-xenAutopkgtest-xenlvmCompatibility – running Debian on other dists

5 Thanks





Libvirt

Libvirt – a generic virtualization management librarySee http://www.libvirt.orgDebian Team: http://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-libvirt/

Debian sources: http://git.debian.org/Available in Lenny, Sid and Backports (only recent versions inunstable support Xen)


http://www.libvirt.org

http://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-libvirt/

http://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-libvirt/

http://git.debian.org/




Virt-Manager

GUI tool to control (remote) virtual machinesSupports many different technologies:

Qemu(with Kqemu)XenKVM

Main Virtualization control tool on Fedora and OpenSuSEActually a GUI for libvirtpkg-libvirt project on Alioth





Virt-Manager status

Qemu (Kqemu) support: goodXen support in libvirt only recently uploaded to unstableDebian-tailored Guest install support lacking - workaround:

Install guest with xen-tools (or anything else)Start it with xm createvirsh dumpxml domain-id > mydomainconfig.xml Â´Then load this config into the system





Virtualbox

An aspiring and cross-platform desktop virtualization solutionDeveloped by a small company in GermanyClosed source versions used in production for quite some whileOpenSourced only a little more than a year agoBought by Sun some weeks agoThe Virtualbox team does a great job:

virtualbox-ose and all required packagesguest extensions for LinuxOn Alioth: pkg-virtualbox





Others

Up-to date versions of KVM, Vserver and openVZ flow intoDebian regularlyQemu has now 3 GUI’s to chose from – more belowMore on Xen and related tools later!




Qemu management GUIs I

Qtemu:New in Lenny/Sideasy to use and get startedbut limited set of options

Qemu-launcherharder to get started,but full set of options and functionality,very realiable




Qemu management GUIs II

Qemu-controlGUI for the Qemu monitor(VM control system, not graphicaloutput)

can be used standalone or called by Qemu-launcher

Qemulator:New in Lenny/Sidcomplex interface similar to qemu-launcher, but not fullfunctionalityOne crash at the first test – then seemed stable




Qemu management GUIs III

Summary:You can chose by your taste which you like best - they are allusableAll of these can save and store configs so same settings can bereproducedSurely, all have a different config file scheme :(





Core Xen packages

Xen 3.2 uploaded shortly after the releaseOnly in testing: libxenstore and xenstore-utils packagesIn Sid: Xen kernel flavor - binaries work for Xen guestsNOT there: Debian packaged dom0 Kernel!Workaround: Use a 2.6.18 Kernel from Xensource (Etch xenKernels said to be incompatible with Xen 3.2)There are efforts and development for pvops dom0 Kernel –my tests not successful





Xen management – overview I

Xen-specific stuff:xen-tools (combined with FAI, rinse, rpmstrap, debootstrap)xenman (no release for a while, no Debian guestinstalation,but can control running guests)xen-shell (since Lenny)dtc-xen and dtc-xen-firewallGaneti





Xen management – overview II

Generic stuff useful for Xen bootstrapping:FAI – class based, automated installs (see BoF later today)

dirinstall – straight into a mounted directorynetinstall – configure nfsroot in Xen configfai-cd – only for HVM domains

rinse – rpm-distro bootstrapping – best tool for this taskrpmstrap – bootstrap RPM distributionsyum – as rpmstrap, more up-to-datemach (make a chroot)





xen-tools I

Pure, simple command line tool, written in PerlGenerates Xen config-files and creates block deviced based on:

Main config filePreset files (–config)Command line inputNew in Lenny: Partitioning profiles

Installs guests with debootstrap, rinse, tar-archive . . .Simple extensible with custom “roles” and hooks, customconfig templates(Text::Template)New in Lenny: Build Xen Configs for booting guest viaNFSRoot





xen-tools – install and config

apt-get install xen-toolsLatest stuff in CVS repo, builds debs easily (nice: if you stillwant make install, there’s even make uninstall to clean up)Config file: /etc/xen-tools/xen-tools.confImportant options to set: dir/lvm, kernel, initrd, debootstrap,dhcpcreate dir for block-dev-files / volume group





xen-tools – usage

Create vm and installxen-create-image –hostname xen-tools-test

Delete:xen-delete-image –hostname xen-tools-test

Complex partitions: see /etc/xen-tools/partition.d/*Do more complex install tasks and class-based stuff:

Combine xen-tools with FAI dirinstall(or softupdates, if youinsist)FAI not covered here – see Thomas Lange’s talk later today inthe upper Bof room . . .





xen-tools – combine with FAI

Get more complex install tasks done in a structured wayUse a class based install systemSet config option “no-install=1” to supercede standard installUse the role “fai-install” – simple script:

#!/bin/shTARGET=$1CMD="fai -N -v -u $hostname dirinstall $TARGET"echo running $CMD$CMD





xen-shell I

Also written by Steve Kemp and maintained by Radu SpineanuA shell, bound to a ssh login, that lets you manage guestdomains(permissions defined in domU config file):

connect to it’s serial consolestart/stop/rebootcheck statusRe-Install. . .

As xen-tools, it’s easy to build a Debian package of from CVSSupport for public key auth, reverse DNS (disableddynamically if it isn’t detected at startup)





xen-shell II

Very easy to configure and use – interesting for hostingenvironments. . .





xen-shell III





Ganeti

A Xen management tool in use and developed by GoogleSee http://code.google.com/p/ganetiSimple setup of Xen clusters with mirrored disksHigh quality, works simply out of the box – no mess with drbdAvailable in Lenny, Sid, BackportsNew versions from upstream immediately available in DebianJust read the install.html doc file and ge going in minutes!Can also be combined with the well-known FAI


http://code.google.com/p/ganeti




xenman (project ConVirt)

GUI for starting, stopping, connecting to the console, someperformance dataFunctionality for provisioning of Debian guests lacking –can/has to be buildNew tests von Lenny: feels slow and less responsiveNo upstream release since quite a while – project still alive?Remote-management: on the feature list – no success tryingthis. . .





dtc-xen

Extension module for dtc(Domain Technologie Control), aweb hosting management consoleProvides a soap interface to control Xen hostsGenerates some performance graphs quickly and easily





dtc-xen – installation and usage

Just install from unstable with apt-get install dtc-xenGraphs are immediately available athttp://hostname/dtc-xen

Soap management API to be testedNew addition: dtc-xen-firewall – setup package filtering fordom0


http://hostname/dtc-xen




dtc-xen – screenshot





Autopkgtest-xenlvm

Scripts to make autopkgtest run in Xen instancesUsing lvm to easily reset the test instance to normalized stateWritten by Ian JacksonNo time to test it yet – sounds very interesting





Compatibility – running Debian on other dists

debootstrap works well on other dists – must add –archbecause no dpkgxen-tools, tooDon’t use host’s kernels(when used to use kernels from /bootyou are tempted to) – use native kernel via pygrub or copy itto host




Thanks

Thanks to all Maintainers and developers for the greatVirtualization packages in Debian!




Advertisement

If you liked this talk, and are able to read German, you mightalso like our book:

“Xen. Virtualisierung unter Linux.” – by Timo Benk, JaroslawZdrzalek, Ralph Dehner, Henning SprangISBN: 3-937514-29-5Accompanying website: http://www.xen-info.de(errata, mailing list, wiki, . . . )Translation pending – english publishers???

The talk, our book and my other works around Open SourceXen and related tools is sponsored by:

Silpion IT Solutions GmbH – http://www.silpion.deB1 Systems GmbH – http://www.b1-systems.de


http://www.xen-info.de

http://www.silpion.de

http://www.b1-systems.de

Update on Virtualization in Debian

Technology

related tools

debian team

debian thanksoutline

related stunews

xen guestsnot

unstable support xen

system henning

dists core xen packagesxen