Massive Deployment of Xen enabled Virtual Cluster with Diskless Remote Boot Linux

Test Environment

• VMWare Server 1.0.3
• VMWare Image debian 4.0r1 as DRBL Server
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• VMWare Image without disk as DRBL Client
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Pre-installation

• First, install Xen Hypervisor and Xen enabled Linux Kernel and then reboot

  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# uname -a
  Linux drbl-xen-srv 2.6.18-6-686 #1 SMP Sat May 24 10:24:42 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux
  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# apt-get install xen-hypervisor-3.0.3-1-i386-pae linux-image-2.6.18-6-xen-vserver-686 xen-tools libc6-xen
  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# update-grub
  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# reboot
  

  • Note: If you did not install libc6-xen, "4gb seg fixup" error message will keep showing up while booting.
  • 
• Choose Xen to boot at GRUB menu
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Install and Configure DRBL

• Download GPG-KEY-DRBL and add GPG key via apt-key

  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# wget http://drbl.nchc.org.tw/GPG-KEY-DRBL
  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# apt-key add GPG-KEY-DRBL
  

• Add DRBL repository URL to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ then install drbl package

  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# echo "deb http://free.nchc.org.tw/drbl-core drbl stable" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/drbl-sources.list
  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# apt-get update
  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# apt-get install drbl
  

• Use drblsrv command to setup DRBL server. Here we choose linux-image-2.6.18-6-486 as default DRBL PXE kernel image

  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# /opt/drbl/sbin/drblsrv -i 
  [....skip....]
  Install kernel for clients... ...
  In ayo repository, searching the latest kernel ...
  *****************************************************.
  Now run: /opt/drbl/sbin/drblsrv-offline -c -d -a -l en_US -k /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-2.6.18-6-486_2.6.18.dfsg.1-18etch5_i386.deb "" ""
  Kernel package /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-2.6.18-6-486_2.6.18.dfsg.1-18etch5_i386.deb is used for client...
  *****************************************************.
  [....skip....]
  

• Use drblpush command to deploy DRBL Client Image

  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# /opt/drbl/sbin/drblpush -i
  

• Use Thin Client VMWare Image to test DRBL
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Configure PXELinux for Xen Network Booting

• To load Xen-based kernels you have to use the SYSLINUX multiboot module mboot.c32. So we copy mboot.c32 and Xen hypervisor to TFTP root directory of DRBL.

  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# dpkg -S mboot.c32
  syslinux: /usr/lib/syslinux/mboot.c32
  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# cp /usr/lib/syslinux/mboot.c32 /tftpboot/nbi_img/.
  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# cp /boot/xen-3.0.3-1-i386-pae.gz /tftpboot/nbi_img/.
  

• Use drblsrv-offline command to generate initial ramdisk of xen-based kernel which is needed for PXE network booting. You should find initrd-pxe.2.6.18-6-xen-vserver-686.img and vmlinuz-2.6.18-6-xen-vserver-686 in /tftpboot/nbi_img/ folder.

  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# /opt/drbl/sbin/drblsrv-offline -s `uname -r`
  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# find /tftpboot/nbi_img/ -name "*-xen*"
  /tftpboot/nbi_img/initrd-pxe.2.6.18-6-xen-vserver-686.img
  /tftpboot/nbi_img/vmlinuz-2.6.18-6-xen-vserver-686
  

  • Note: initrd-pxe.2.6.18-6-xen-vserver-686.img is different from /boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-6-xen-vserver-686. In initrd-pxe.2.6.18-6-xen-vserver-686.img, there are NFS mounting scripts which is needed for each DRBL client.
• Since Xen-based kernel can not boot with Xen hypervisor, we have to switch vmlinuz-pxe and initrd-pxe.img back to normal linux kernl.

  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# /opt/drbl/sbin/drblsrv-offline -c -d -a -l en_US -k /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-2.6.18-6-486_2.6.18.dfsg.1-18etch5_i386.deb
  

  • Note: You can simply remove and recreate the symbolic links named by vmlinuz-pxe and initrd-pxe.img in /tftpboot/nbi_img

    root@drbl-xen-srv:~# cd /tftpboot/nbi_img
    root@drbl-xen-srv:/tftpboot/nbi_img# rm initrd-pxe.img vmlinuz-pxe
    root@drbl-xen-srv:/tftpboot/nbi_img# ln -s initrd-pxe.2.6.18-6-486.img initrd-pxe.img
    root@drbl-xen-srv:/tftpboot/nbi_img# ln -s vmlinuz-2.6.18-6-486 vmlinuz-pxe
    

• Add a new Xen option to pxelinux.cfg

  root@drbl-xen-srv:~# cat << EOF >> /tftpboot/nbi_img/pxelinux.cfg/default
  > label xen cluster
  >   MENU DEFAULT
  >   # MENU HIDE
  >   MENU LABEL Xen 3.0.1-1-i386-pae
  >   # MENU PASSWD
  >   kernel mboot.c32
  >   append xen-3.0.3-1-i386-pae.gz --- vmlinuz-2.6.18-6-xen-vserver-686 root=/dev/sda1 ro console=tty0 --- initrd-pxe.2.6.18-6-xen-vserver-686.img
  >   TEXT HELP
  >   Run Xen 3.0 in each DRBL Client
  >   ENDTEXT
  > EOF
  

• Use Thin Client VMWare Image to test DRBL
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  • 

Reference

• ​Syslinux Wiki
• ​Xen PXE Boot Howto
• ​Bootloader support for Xen
• If you are using debian, beware of bug ​#391152