The following three chapters describe how to install and configure your fully virtualized guests to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 or above with para-virtualized drivers.
Verify your architecture is supported before proceeding
Para-virtualized drivers are only supported on certain hardware and version combinations. Verify your hardware and operating system requirements are met before proceeding to install para-virtualized drivers.
Maximizing the benefit of the para-virtualized drivers for new installations
If you are installing a new guest system, in order to gain maximal benefit from the para-virtualized block device drivers, you should create the guest with at least two disks.
Specifically, use the first disk to install the MBR and the boot loader (GRUB), and to contain the /boot partition. (This disk can be very small, as it only needs to have enough capacity to hold the /boot partition.
Use the second disk and any additional disks for all other partitions (e.g. /, /usr) or logical volumes.
Using this installation method, when the para-virtualized block device drivers are later installed after completing the install of the guest, only booting the guest and accessing the /boot partition will use the virtualized block device drivers.
12.3.1. Common installation steps
The list below covers the high level steps common across all guest operating system versions.
Copy the RPMs for your hardware architecture to a suitable location in your guest operating system. Your home directory is sufficient. If you do not know which RPM you require verify against the table at Section 12.2, “Para-virtualization Restrictions and Support”.
Use the rpm utility to install the RPM packages. The rpm utility will install the following four new kernel modules into /lib/modules/[%kversion][%kvariant]/extra/xenpv/%release:
the PCI infrastructure module, xen-platform-pci.ko,
the ballooning module, xen-balloon.ko,
the virtual block device module, xen-vbd.ko,
and the virtual network device module, xen.vnif.ko.
If the guest operating does not support automatically loading the para-virtualized drivers (for example Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3) perform the required post-install steps to copy the drivers into the operating system specific locations.
Shutdown your guest operating system.
Reconfigure the guest operating system configuration file on the host to use the installed para-virtualized drivers.
Remove the “type=ioemu” entry for the network device.
Add any additional storage entities you want to use for the para-virtualized block device driver.
Restart your guest using the “xm create YourGuestName” command where YourGuestName is the name of the guest operating system.