XEN on Debian Squeeze host/Dom0

I wanted to try XEN during the holidays, on a box placed at my parents. Since my experience with XEN was non-existent I was looking forward to a nerdathlon. However, the process turned out to be quite easy and painless.

These notes are based on a standard Debian squeeze minimal install.

Install XEN

aptitude install xen-linux-system-2.6.32-5-xen-amd64

This will install both the XEN hypervisor and a XEN-compatible kernel. However, if you reboot at this stage you are not be running the XEN hypervisor, only a XEN-compatible kernel. We need to modify grub.

Modify Grub2 boot order(From Debian Wiki)

mv -i /etc/grub.d/10_linux /etc/grub.d/50_linux
update-grub2

A good idea is also to prevent grub from probing for operating systems, since this might reveal our guest OSes (DomUs).

Disable Grub2 OS-probing (From Debian Wiki)

echo "" >> /etc/default/grub
echo "GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true" >> /etc/default/grub
update-grub2

The various howtos I have found on the subject around the internet also suggest that you enable network bridging in XEN at this point. I doubt this is needed to get networking for Dom0, but I have not tested it.

Enable network briding (From Debian Wiki)

# Uncomment the following line in 
# /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp
(network-script network-bridge)

Reboot at this stage and you will be met with a Debian Squeeze Dom0 running on the XEN hypervisor.