Ok, so I've gotten a Xen kernel installed just fine and booted. Now I'm trying to get a domU installed and am having trouble with the install media urls*which are not clearly explained anywhere on the internet. All I see is use a valid install url without any explanation of what that actually is. For example, you would think you could use a .iso file, but you cannot. It doesn't appear that you can use a local install extract as all I see are FTP, HTTP or NFS servers.*
1. What constitutes a valid install media URL? What does virt-manager look for at this URL?
2. How do you get a valid install media URL for a particular Linux distribution? I looked at Ubuntumirrors and don't see anything that looks like I can
use.
3. How can you create / extract the install directory from an .iso file? I can mount the iso and copythe contents to a directory, but what particular path do I use for the base directory for the install URL?
4. What are valid install media URLS for: Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSolaris, & Centos5?
Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. I will also add this to a blog and do a write up so that others don't go through the pain that I have. *After 24 hours of Googling, I can't find these answers and thisshould certainly be part of the Xen FAQ and Virt-Manager docs too. I see a lot of similar questions, but no answers.*
Thanks,
-Enzo


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On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 09:40:51PM -0800, Enzo Medici wrote:
>
>
> Ok, so I've gotten a Xen kernel installed just fine and booted. Now I'm trying to get a domU installed and am having trouble with the install media urls which are not clearly explained anywhere on the internet. All I see is use a valid install url without any explanation of what that actually is. For example, you would think you could use a .iso file, but you cannot. It doesn't appear that you can use a local install extract as all I see are FTP, HTTP or NFS servers.
>
> 1. What constitutes a valid install media URL? What does virt-manager look for at this URL?

The install media URL is a URL that points to your OS distribution
tree. eg, in Fedora world it'd be

http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/development/i386/os/

If you have mounted the DVD ISO image somewhere and exportedvia NFS,
HTTP or FTP, you can point to that

>
> 2. How do you get a valid install media URL for a particular Linux distribution? I looked at Ubuntu
> mirrors and don't see anything that looks like I can use.

Again, the top level directory of the particular OS distro install
media.

Daniel
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Enzo Medici wrote:
>
> Ok, so I've gotten a Xen kernel installed just fine and booted. Now I'm trying to get a domU installed and am having trouble with the install media urls which are not clearly explained anywhere on the internet. All I see is use a valid install url without any explanation of what that actually is. For example, you would think you could use a .iso file, but you cannot. It doesn't appear that you can use a local install extract as all I see are FTP, HTTP or NFS servers.
>
> 1. What constitutes a valid install media URL? What does virt-manager look for at this URL?
>
> 2. How do you get a valid install media URL for a particular Linux distribution? I looked at Ubuntu
> mirrors and don't see anything that looks like I can use.
>

We actually don't have support in the backend for fetching kernels
from ubuntu trees. I was playing with this over the weekend though
and I have a patch that will fix it.

This may work at the moment though since it could be detected as
a debian tree.

> 3. How can you create / extract the install directory from an .iso file? I can mount the iso and copy
> the contents to a directory, but what particular path do I use for the base directory for the install URL?
>
> 4. What are valid install media URLS for: Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSolaris, & Centos5?
>

For fedora, it has varied a bit for different releases, but basically
whatever ends in {ARCH}/os:

http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/releases/9/Fedora/x86_64/os/

CentOS is similar, but seems to have ARCH and os reversed:

http://mirrors.cmich.edu/centos/5/os/x86_64/

Debian/Ubuntu trees are everything up to the install-{arch} dir:

http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/etch/main/installer-i386

Does OpenSolaris even have links to trees? I could only find links
to install media.

- Cole

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Cole Robinson wrote:
> Enzo Medici wrote:
>> Ok, so I've gotten a Xen kernel installed just fine and booted. Now I'm trying to get a domU installed and am having trouble with the install media urls which are not clearly explained anywhere on the internet. All I see is use a valid install url without any explanation of what that actually is. For example, you would think you could use a .iso file, but you cannot. It doesn't appear that you can use a local install extract as all I see are FTP, HTTP or NFS servers.
>>
>> 1. What constitutes a valid install media URL? What does virt-manager look for at this URL?
>>
>> 2. How do you get a valid install media URL for a particular Linux distribution? I looked at Ubuntu
>> mirrors and don't see anything that looks like I can use.
>>
>
> We actually don't have support in the backend for fetching kernels
> from ubuntu trees. I was playing with this over the weekend though
> and I have a patch that will fix it.
>
> This may work at the moment though since it could be detected as
> a debian tree.
>

FYI, fetching Ubuntu kernels is supported with the latest virtinst
release, 0.400.1

>> 3. How can you create / extract the install directory from an .iso file? I can mount the iso and copy
>> the contents to a directory, but what particular path do I use for the base directory for the install URL?
>>
>> 4. What are valid install media URLS for: Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSolaris, & Centos5?
>>
>
> For fedora, it has varied a bit for different releases, but basically
> whatever ends in {ARCH}/os:
>
> http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/releases/9/Fedora/x86_64/os/
>
> CentOS is similar, but seems to have ARCH and os reversed:
>
> http://mirrors.cmich.edu/centos/5/os/x86_64/
>
> Debian/Ubuntu trees are everything up to the install-{arch} dir:
>
> http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/etch/main/installer-i386
>

All this is now documented in the virt-install man page.

Thanks,
Cole

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