[ale] Physical to Xen Server

[Chris Kleeschulte]

Somewhat loaded question:


If you are planning on making this a para-virtualized guest on a DOM:

	this requires that your guest OS (the physical server) run the xen  
kernel modifications and modules, in other words it needs to know it  
is being virtualized, so you would need to consider the following:
		1. does this machine need a custom kernel and custom modules?
		2. does this machine need access to all the same hardware it used  
when it was physically running on hardware


If you are planning on running the physical server inside a non para- 
virtualized guest, it is fairly easy (or could be):
	the guest OS need not be aware it is being virtualized
		1. you can LVM snapshot the disk(s) and prepare a Xen DOM and boot  
LVM snapshot inside the DOM


I realize to newcomers to Xen, this all seems daunting, but there are  
a huge number of options here. You could make the physical machine a  
Xen DOM (physical machine that hosts guest machines) and then just  
snapshot or copy the data for the guest to use (this may be the  
easiest). There are many senarios, so it would depend on what state  
the intended guest is in...what OS, etc.



I would consult the Xen docs and check if your dom hardware can  
support non para virtualized hosts (your processor must have the  
extensions)



Chris Kleeschulte

On Apr 28, 2009, at 3:23 PM, Brandon Colbert wrote
>
> Does anyone know how to convert a physical server to a Xen guest?  
> Where do I start?