xen-tools v0.6
--------------

  Xen-Tools is a collection of Perl scripts for working with Xen
 images under Debian GNU/Linux.

  It is primarily aimed at people who wish to create virtual instances
 of Debian systems.  You may easily manipulate instances of Debian
 Sarge, Etch, or Sid.

  The tools all work in a similar way and each have the same assumptions.

  It is assumed that each virtual image will be comprised of two files
 upon the host system:

	1.  A disk image to be used by Xen as the primary drive.
	2.  A disk image to be used by Xen as the swap partition.

  Images are assumed to live beneath a common  root directory,
 which is specified via the common '--dir=' command line argument 
 to each of the scripts. 

  (Alternatively you may include 'dir=/path' inside the global
 configuration file /etc/xen-tools/xen-tools.conf.)

  Beneath the root directory each virtual instance will have a
 subdirectory, named after the hostname of the image.  A 
 typical layout might look like this:

/home/xen/domains/
|-- bar               [Virtual machine named 'bar']
|   |-- disk.img        [Disk image]
|   `-- swap.img        [Swap image]
|-- etch              [Virtual machine named 'etch']
|   |-- disk.img        [Disk image]
|   `-- swap.img        [Swap image]
|-- foo               [Virtual machine named 'foo']
|   |-- disk.img
|   `-- swap.img
|-- progress          [Virtual machine named 'progress']
|   |-- disk.img
|   `-- swap.img
|-- sarge             [Virtual machine named 'sarge']
|   |-- disk.img
|   `-- swap.img


  A description of the individual scripts now follows.
  For more details run the relevent script with the '--manual'
 argument to read the manual, with examples.


xen-create-image
----------------

  This is a simple script which is designed to create new images
 which may be used with the Xen virtual machine.  You may create
 images of Sarge, Etch, or Sid.

  The machines may have their networking settings created and
 you can optionally cause the new instance to boot once it has
 been created.


xen-clone-image
---------------

  This script allows a cloning operation to be conducted.  An existing
 image will be copied to a new directory and the networking information
 will be updated.  No other changes are applied.


xen-delete-image
----------------

  This script will delete an image by hostname.


xen-list-images
---------------

  List all the created images beneath a given root directory along
 with their network addresses.

  (In the case of images using DHCP an IP address will not be listed.)


xen-update-image
----------------

  This script runs "apt-get update; apt-get upgrade" for a given
 Xen image.

  NOTE:  The image should not be mounted/live/running or things will
 be corrupted.  (Still if the image is "live" you may just use SSH, right?)



TODO
----

  1. Test more filesystem types.
  2. Move each file copying / creation into a seperate routine.
  3. See if there can be simple tests made without splitting things
     into modules..


Steve
--
$Id: README,v 1.15 2005-12-24 20:38:52 steve Exp $