Re: Can I use a native Linux installation as DomU?

[Gerard Lally <lists+netbsd.users%netmail.ie@localhost>]

At date and time Sun, 24 Aug 2014 18:39:05 +0530, Mayuresh wrote:

> I am running NetBSD 6.1 i386, XEN3 DOM0, xentools 41.
> 
> I have a Fedora 17 installation on a separate partition. Currently I can
> dual boot into either of the OSes.
> 
> I am trying to run Fedora 17 as DomU on NetBSD Dom0.
> 
> Firstly, is it a terrible idea - particularly if I need to continue to use
> the Fedora 17 installation natively as well?

No, not a terrible idea at all. I did this some years ago with Slackware.
Quite straightforward, even though I was new to Slackware and NetBSD at
the time. When you are in bare-metal Fedora make sure disk mounts are
specified with UUID rather than /dev, so that the mounts are correct for
both bare-metal and domU.

Just run blkid to get a mapping of UUID to /dev

Then replace /dev/sdaXXX with the corresponding UUID in /etc/fstab.

For example, replace this:

/dev/sda1  /  ext3  defaults  1  2

with this:

UUID=41c22818-fbad-4da6-8196-c816df0b7aa8  /  ext3  defaults 1 2

Perhaps Fedora already specifies mounts this way; Slackware doesn't.

I also found it easier to set up if I used LVM. Another thing you should
do while in bare-metal Fedora is set up SSH, VNC and/or XDMCP, so that
you will be able to log into Fedora when it's running as a domU.

-- 
Gerard Lally