Re: RHEL VM on Xen

[Dag Wieers <dag wieers com>]

On Wed, 5 Apr 2006, John Que wrote:

> Hello,
> I know of couse that centos is based on RHEL.
> 
> Well , if we look centos instructions at
> http://mark.foster.cc/wiki/index.php/Centos-4_on_Xen
> we will find out that the first part can be  the same with no problems.
> 
> Afterward, comes this section:
> 
> "You will need the latest Centos 4.2 rpmstrap file
> http://trac.samhart.net/trac/ticket/17. The auctual file is locate
> here (http://trac.samhart.net/trac/attachment/ticket/17/centos42?format=raw).
> Download the file.
> wget http://trac.samhart.net/trac/attachment/ticket/17/centos42?format=raw
> cp centos42?format=raw /usr/lib/rpmstrap/scripts/centos42
> Now proceed with the rpmstrap process.
>  cd /
>  mkdir /tmp/centos42-rpms
>  rpmstrap --verbose --download-only centos42 /tmp/centos42-rpms
>  rpm --root /mnt/disk --import
> http://mirror.centos.org/centos/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-4
>  rpmstrap --verbose --local-source /tmp/centos42-rpms centos4 /mnt/disk
>  chroot /mnt/disk /bin/bash
> ....
> 
> so should I use now rpmstrap  methods and try to understand what
> exactly is happening and adjust it ? start learning what is the file I
> downloaded (attachment/ticket/17/centos42?format=raw ) exactly ?
> or start with pyrpm ? the reason is that there are people like me who
> don't know much about it; and Xen is not some esoteric project which
> nobody heard of.
> And also RHEL is not some esoteric project.
> And I believe that somebody (more than one) had tried this process before .
> So if anybody can post here exactly what he did (or he had documented it
> somewhere) I think it may help many
> Isn't it so ?

Well, I would do a kickstart installation instead of creating an image 
with files on it to create the image.

rpmstrap is not a very good project because, even for centos it only works 
with an older version of centos. The reason for this is that it relies on 
a correct package-list (with version and release included) so it has to be 
adapted every time there is a new quarterly update (or even updates).

pyrpm is much better in that respect and I would advise you to read the 
pyrpm project page and install the RPM package. It provides a tool that is 
almost identical to rpmstrap (and doesn't need the cusomization described 
in the document you refered to).

It would be nice if you could create a walk-through like that (one that 
works for more than distribution). I'm sure it's useful.

PS You could use qemu or vmware to create images as well inside a virtual 
machine, or simply use apt or smart to install a set of files similar to 
rpmstrap does. Both of these methods is technically much better and would 
work on CentOS _and_ RHEL. (and likely Fedora as well)

I'm waiting with anticipation for your instructions :)

Kind regards,
--   dag wieers,  dag wieers com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]