TABLE OF CONTENTS With Xen s roots in the open-source community, the original users of the hypervisor were skilled Linux experts that new their way around kernel development. As it has grown in popularity, Xen is now widely available to a diverse array of users of various backgrounds. Getting Xen up and running may appear to be a daunting task to newcomers, and taking advantage of every feature nearly impossible but if you think yourself among the novices, don t worry. The installation really is not that complicated.
In this chapter, we will demystify the installation of Xen. You will learn what kind of machine you need for different Xen installations, walk through various methods for installing Xen, and, even more important, find out how to configure Xen, get connected, and get your first virtual machine up and running.
When choosing your Xen platform, you should consider a couple of different options. Since Xen started out as an open-source product and most people are running their host platform, domain0 in Xen terminology, on a Linux machine, you can choose between Community, Commercial, or Enterprise Linux Distributions, or a custom Linux platform created by XenSource.
If you choose a Community Linux Distribution, such as Fedora Core, CentOS, Ubuntu, or OpenSuse, you will get a Xen version that is packaged and tested by the community, with a different set of GUI and command-line tools depending on the packager.
Open-source Linux Distributions give you the freedom to do everything yourself and mix and...
