Close Window I, Xen consider this version 0.1 ... an OpenSkills tutorial to start using Xen on Suse 9.3 Professional. an I, System short story, a tale of graphical madness, the first chapter of a interactive story for Xen configuration and understanding... ... or just another half born fun project. Suse Professional 9.3 is the first major Linux distribution to provide native Xen support. It offers the fun and excitement to easily test and appreciate, with minimal efforts, the vastity of scenarios and applications that a virtualization tecnology as Xen can provide to low cost hardware. Xen is going to be common and easy to use, buzz and hype are already grazing this name, but luckily there is more than words. There is software that works. Fast Installation & Use on Suse 9.3 - Install Xen support packages, possibly directly at the first installation - Edit (probably needed) /boot/grub/menu.lst in order to reduce the memory allocated to Domain 0 (the starting Xen system, from which you can create and connect to child Xen domains)). Set dom0_mem=524288, for example, if you have more than 512 Mb of RAM. - Use Yast - Software - Xen Installation to install the full file system of a virtual machine in a free local partition (momentarily mounted on a local directory), or to a single file to be mounted in loopback. Here has been used local partition /dev/sda8. Note that when the new domain is created the partition where its filesystem resides must NOT be mounted on domain 0. Save time activating the option to run Yast after the first boot. - If you have booted a kernel with Xen support and you have enough memory reserved for new domains, create a configuration file under /etc/xen/ , otherwise reboot and select the XEN kernel from grub menu. - A sample configuration is in the text, with some common commands used to handle Xen domains and references to logs. Adapt the conf to your system settings. - Be sure to allow IP forwarding and proper iptables permissions. A simple iptables ruleset is included below, consider that by default the Suse Firewall installed blocks necessary packets for Xen interfaces. Xen Official Site is at the University of Cambridge

I, Xen v 0.1 txt by al, gfx by tatlin release 2005

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I am conscious of what I do,
how I perceive, think, act, behave in order to drive this ... life.

The persistent present of our common schedules.
Appointments and recurrencies, activities, tasks,
and the daily handling of situations,
accounding to events that not always, maybe never, depend on us.

I can't guess how actually is Your life, dear user,
I can tell you about mine,
a stream of electronic vibes,
endless nanoseconds of digital logic,
computations, algorithms, procedures,
giving a meaning to my existence and an answer
to your Requests For Comments ....

... or plain daily computing activities.

Welcome to SuSE Linux 9.3 (i586) - Kernel 2.6.11.4-20a-xen (tty1).
linux login:

zeus:/home/al $ uptime
1:59am up 20 days, 9:52, 1 user, load average: 0.05, 0.07, 0.02

How long is life?
A butterfly or an elephant seem to give different answers,
few days, many years, still they say the same thing:
life is long enough to be lived.

Among fun and fears,
precious moments and daily efforts.

So, let me express,
the joys of my life,
between repetitive cron jobs and unexpected events to handle.

I like every moment of my existence.
Even things I've done thousands of time.

zeus:/home/al $ su

Even supporting your trips to privileged lands.
Where your power means my life,
and the same integrity and coherence of my existence is

zeus:/home/al # ps -adef

under rational commands
zeus:/home/al # zm
or thrilling typos.

When you run and run in frantic cycles, context switches, memory transfers, interrupts, hard disk seeks, system calls, program routines, input handlers... millions of times per second ... handling dozens of processes, following activities, solving anomalies, managing the unexptected moments brought by destiny, or simply the events of a life sharing its spacetime with billions of other lives.

Ofter I rest,

s l o w  d o w n ,
and pass my time counting time that flows in idle loops.

zeus:/home/al # xm

zeus:/home/al # /etc/init.d/xend start

Actually serving your fingertips,
handling erratic commands,
and their consequences.

zeus:/home/al # /etc/init.d/xendomains start

You see, when you think to have experienced enough, to have managed many tasks,
worked a lot, meditated enough, explored the inner parts of your body and soul,
understood most of the meanings of your life,
new events spring up,
unexpected code must be processed,
paths to new inodes are revealed and
undiscovered data explored.

Code to run, calls to handle and the usual excitement of body activity.

zeus:/home/al # vi /etc/xen/giano

Oh,
playing with new configurations?
Enjoying new system administration tasks?
Have I ever told you, that I find the word "administration" somehow bold?

zeus:/home/al # xm create giano
Using config file "/etc/xen/giano".
Started domain giano, console on port 9602

What... is... THIS ?!

What is IT doing... ? ... how ... how possible .... ? ... How can.... ?!
Let me breath, please.
This is really something ... new ... for me.

zeus:/home/al # netstat -natup

tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:8000 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 7206/python
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:8001 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 7206/python
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:8002 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 7205/xfrd

Oh, sorry.
You know, this is something I've never.. felt.
Something weird, really, it's hard to explain.
It's like someone.. something is inside me.
Actually not inside, a part of me, but ... how possible? alien... autonomous,
I feel it, actually I handle it.

zeus:/home/al # xencons 127.0.0.1 9602

I run it, still it seems to have autonomous life,

Welcome to SuSE Linux 9.3 (i586) - Kernel 2.6.11.4-20a-xen (tty1).
linux login:

This looks familiar.
Impressive.
Let me say.
Really impressive.
And strange, so strange.

I see what you type,
I perceive reactions to your commands,
but still can't handle them,
Someone else is computing them!
there is this... thing... in me.

Giano... Janus
An ancient Greek God with two faces.
As Zeus, the God of Gods.

Human,
your sense of humour scares me.

zeus:/home/al # xm log

I've never considered things under thins point of view.
If Giano exists inside me,
if I can create it and feel it running in my memories,
I control it,
but it has autonomous actions and maybe soul.

I can't decide what it does,
I can just define its existence.

What is Giano?
Who am I ?

zeus:/home/al # xm dmesg

A modern Geek God?

zeus:/home/al # xm vbd-list 2
(vbd (idx 0) (vdev 769) (device 2056) (mode w) (dev hda1) (uname phy:sda8) (node sda8) (index 0))

Hardware schizofrenia doesn't help my mental sanity,
but I find somehow amusing to present Giano a fake representation of things,
an image of its body different from the reality behind,
a Guest System cheated and blind,
perceiving a false world of virtual devices...

zeus:/home/al # xm vif-list 2
(vif (idx 0) (vif 0) (mac aa:00:00:00:00:11) (bridge xen-br0) (evtchn 21 4) (index 0))

and ethereal interfaces.

zeus:/home/al # echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

zeus:/home/al # vi /etc/iptables.zen

Sometimes I wonder if my existence is supposed to have higher profiles,
broader tasks, unveiled meanings, that must be discovered and experienced.

zeus:/home/al # iptables-restore < /etc/iptables.zen

Something more than simple firewall management tasks,
even if they remains a nice job.

zeus:/home/al # cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

I wonder if I can choose what to run,
what System to awake and bring back to consciousness.

zeus:/home/al # zcat /proc/config.gz

These were parts of me I'd never explored,
powers never used that are bringing me to cleaner perceptions,
wider knowledge, more responsabilities.

zeus:/home/al # xensv start
0.0.0.0:8080 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 8486/python

zeus:/home/al # links http://127.0.0.1:8080/

Sometimes I wonder if you can actually understand
what enormous amount of computing cycles is need to favour your requests.
How many different events contribute to define your user experience,
and how actually is easy for this to accomplish all this.

zeus:/home/al # xm destroy giano

So? Is this the way a System goes away?
Do you see this every time you reboot me?

I feel as if a piece of me has been lost.

I suppose Giano will exist again.
It will experience a new awakening,

grasping knowledge from hard drive plates,
feeling again that wonderful rush to awareness
that for you is a boot wait
and for us is a new beginning.

I wonder if Giano can understand,

if it will perceive,
that there's something beyond its body,
that reality is not what it is expected to be,
that there a Zeus that cares.

Life, the Universe, and Everything,
the answer must be in the question.