Homepage:
    http://www.xen-tools.org/software/xen-tools

CVS Repository:
    http://xen-tools.cvsrepository.org/

Mailing Lists:
    http://lists.cvsrepository.org/


xen-tools
---------

  The xen-tools package contains a collection of Perl scripts for
 working with Xen images under Debian GNU/Linux.

  It is primarily aimed at users who wish to create virtual instances
 of Debian Sarge, Etch, or Sid.  Although there is support for installing
 non-Debian instances this is both new and experimental.

  There are two ways to use the scripts:

  1. With loopback files which is the simplest method.
  2. Using LVM for better performance.



Loopback Files
--------------

  If you use the default setup with loopback files then each virtaul
 image will use two files on your 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.

  These images will be kept beneath whichever directory you specify 
 as your root directory (via the command line flag "--dir=.." or a 
 configuration file entry "dir = ..")

  Beneath the root directory each virtual instance will have a
 subdirectory, named after the hostname of the image.  

  A typical layout would look like this:

/home/xen/domains/
|-- bar               [Virtual machine named 'bar']
|   |-- disk.img        [Disk image]
|   `-- swap.img        [Swap image]
|   `-- install.log     [Debootstrap installation log]
|-- etch              [Virtual machine named 'etch']
|   |-- disk.img        [Disk image]
|   `-- swap.img        [Swap image]
|   `-- install.log     [Debootstrap installation log]




LVM Support
-----------

  If you wish to use the LVM support then you will give the 
 scripts an LVM volume group as an argument, or in the configuration
 file. 

  The volume group will be used to create two new logical volumes,
 one for the disk and one for the swap.


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

  This script is designed to create new images which may be used
 with the Xen virtual machine.  You may create images of Debian
 or the non-Debian distributions which include CentOS 4.

  The virtual images will have their networking settings created and,
 you may optionally cause the new instance to boot once it has
 been created.

  The image may be customised by the use of hook scripts see the
 manpage for more details.


xen-duplicate-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 a images by hostname, it will remove the
 logical volumes, or loopback files, which make up the storage for the
 Xen instance.


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?)


Steve
--
$Id: README,v 1.33 2006-06-14 08:33:09 steve Exp $