2.0 Setting Up a Virtual Machine Host

This section documents how to set up and use SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP4 as a virtual machine host.

In most cases, the hardware requirements for the Domain0 are the same as those for the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server operating system, but additional CPU, disk, memory, and network resources should be added to accommodate the resource demands of all planned VM Guest systems.

HINT: Remember that VM Guest systems, just like physical machines, perform better when they run on faster processors and have access to more system memory.

The following table lists the minimum hardware requirements for running a typical virtualized environment. Additional requirements have to be added for the number and type of the respective guest systems.

Table 2-1 Hardware Requirements

System Component

Minimum Requirements

Computer

Computer with Pentium II or AMD K7 450 MHz processor

Memory

512 MB of RAM for the host

Free Disk Space

7 GB of available disk space for the host.

Optical Drive

DVD-ROM Drive

Hard Drive

20 GB

Network Board

Ethernet 100 Mbps

IP Address

  • One IP address on a subnet for the host.

  • One IP address on a subnet for each VM Guest.

Xen virtualization technology is available in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server products based on code path 10 and later. Code path 10 products include Open Enterprise Server 2 Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, and openSUSE 10.x.

The virtual machine host requires a number of software packages and their dependencies to be installed. To install all necessary packages, run YaST Software Management, select the filter Patterns and choose Xen Virtual Machine Host Server for installation.

After the Xen software is installed, restart the computer.

IMPORTANT: Boot Issues on 64bit Machines with more than 480 GB RAM

64bit Machines with more than 480 GB RAM may refuse to boot with the following error message: 

(XEN) ****************************************
(XEN) Panic on CPU 0:
(XEN) Not enough RAM for DOM0 reservation.
(XEN) ****************************************

To avoid this error, it is recommended to always specify the Domain 0 Memory size with the boot parameter dom0_mem=VALUE on machine equipped with large amounts of RAM. Set the VALUE at or below the boundary of 480 GB—the difference is reserved for the hypervisor (to be used for guest VMs).

Permanently add this parameter to your boot loader configuration by adding the parameter dom0_mem=VALUE to your Xen kernel boot configuration. Either use YaST > System > Boot Loader or edit /boot/grub/menu.lst. See Section 2.3, Managing Domain 0 Memory for more information.

Updates are available through your update channel. To be sure to have the latest updates installed, run YaST Online Update after the installation has finished.