This chapter discusses booting and running the hypervisor. The open source GNU GRand Unified Bootloader (GRUB) is implemented on x86 based systems that are running the Solaris Operating System. GRUB is the boot loader that is responsible for loading a boot archive into a system's memory. The boot archive contains the kernel modules and configuration files that are required to boot the system.The GRUB main menu is based on the /boot/grub/menu.lst configuration file. For more information on GRUB, see Chapter 11, Modifying Solaris Boot Behavior (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration and grub5. Whether to run Solaris as a virtualized control domain or as a standalone operating system is a boot-time decision. To run the Solaris operating system as a standalone system, continue to use the same GRUB menu entries that you use currently.To run the Solaris system as a control domain with the Sun xVM hypervisor, you must do one of the following:Set Solaris xVM as the default entry to be booted. Select the number of the Solaris xVM entry in /boot/grub/menu.lst during the boot process. This boots the hypervisor, which in turn boots the control domain. In the Solaris xVM entry for booting Solaris as a control domain with the hypervisor, the kernel$ line refers to the hypervisor, and there are two module$ lines. The first module$ line must list the path to unix twice, with any arguments. Arguments are represented by * at the end of a line in the example. The second module$ line lists the path to the boot archive.Become superuser, or assume the Primary Administrator role. Locate the Solaris xVM entry in the /boot/grub/menu.lst file:# bootadm list-menu The location for the active GRUB menu is: /dev/dsk/c2t0d0s0 (not mounted) The filesystem type of the menu device is <ufs> default 3 timeout -1 0 Solaris Express Community Edition snv_79 X86 1 Solaris xVM 2 Solaris failsafe 3 bfu ABE: xVM 64-bit 4 bfu ABE: metal 64-bit Select the Solaris xVM entry, option 1 in this procedure, from the list. In some situations, the GRUB menu.lst file might not reside in /boot/grub. To determine the location of the active GRUB menu.lst file, use the bootadm command with the list-menu subcommand. Become superuser, or assume the Primary Administrator role. Find the number of the xVM entry in /boot/grub/menu.lst:# bootadm list-menu The location for the active GRUB menu is: /dev/dsk/c2t0d0s0 (not mounted) The filesystem type of the menu device is <ufs> default 3 timeout -1 0 Solaris Express Community Edition snv_79 X86 1 Solaris xVM 2 Solaris failsafe 3 bfu ABE: xVM 64-bit 4 bfu ABE: metal 64-bit Set the default using the number of the entry:# bootadm set-menu default=1 Run the virsh list --all, xm list or the xm top commands to view the domains on the system. These commands provide details of running domains. The display from any of these commands should show the single control domain, called Domain-0. Become superuser, or assume the Primary Administrator role. Run virsh list --all .# virsh list --all Id Name State ---------------------------------- 0 Domain-0 running See the xentop1Mman pages. By default, physical address extensions (PAE) mode is used on 32-bit systems, aiding compatibility with other domain 0 implementations. Solaris can boot under either PAE or non-PAE, if the hypervisor version has bi-modal support.To boot Solaris on xVM in 32-bit mode on a 64-bit capable system, the entry must be manually edited to remove all instances of $ISADIR: Become superuser, or assume the Primary Administrator role. Remove all instances of $ISADIR in the menu.lst file so that it looks like this:#---------- ADDED BY BOOTADM - DO NOT EDIT ---------- title 32-bit Solaris xVM kernel /boot/xen.gz module /platform/i86xpv/kernel/unix /platform/i86xpv/kernel/unix [*] module /platform/i86pc/boot_archive #---------------------END BOOTADM-------------------- Prior to installing guest domains (domain Us), you must decide how to create the guest domain environment. The following methods using file systems are available:Solaris ZFSUses the Solaris ZFS file system and volume datasets to enable the rapid provisioning of guest domains. Uses normal files to store guest domain disk images. Live migrations are done using Network File System (NFS). First, create a new storage pool using the zpool command described in zpool1M. The name of the disk can be specified as a full device path, such as /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 , or as a disk name, such as c1t0d0. Multiple disks can be specified by using disk names separated by a space, to use disk striping.Then, create a Solaris ZFS volume to store the guest domain master image. Note that the Solaris ZFS volume is a dataset, however, it represents a block device and can be used like traditional UNIX block devices. Become superuser, or assume the Primary Administrator role. Create a new storage pool named xpool that includes the disk c1t0d0.# zpool create xpool c1t0d0The f option can be used to force the action. Verify that the storage pool is created:# zpool list NAME SIZE USED AVAIL CAP HEALTH ALTROOT xpool 34G 156K 34.0G 0% ONLINE -LYou can use the zpool iostat command to view information about the I/O throughput of the newly created storage pool. Create an 8–Gbyte Solaris ZFS volume to store the guest domain master image.# zfs create -V 8gb xpool/domU-master List the Solaris ZFS volume block device nodes, which are identified as devices in the /dev/zvol/dsk and /dev/zvol/rdsk directories.# ls -l /dev/zvol/dsk/xpool total 2 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root 35 Apr 19 10:24 domu.master ->../../ll/ll/devices/pseudo/zfs@0:1c A files based approach uses normal files to store guest domain disk images, and enables live migrations through NFS. A guest domain disk image is created using the mkfile command described in mkfile1M. The following example creates a 10–Gbyte file for use by the Solaris Operating System guest domain disk image. Note that disk blocks are not allocated until data is written even though a size is specified.If executing the mkfile command as a non-root user, be sure to manually set the sticky bit with the chmod command. Become superuser, or assume the Primary Administrator role. Create the disk image.$ mkfile -n 10g solaris-pv.img Check the size of the disk image using the ls command.$ ls -l solaris-pv.img -rw------T 1 root root 10737418240 May 17 13:43 solaris-pv.imgo This is an optional procedure. If you have more than one physical NIC configured, you might want to configure the default-nic property of the xvm/xend SMF service. The NIC must support GLDv3. Supported NICs include bge, e1000g, xge, nge, and rge. Become superuser, or assume the appropriate role. Configure default-nic property of the xvm/xend SMF service. This procedure is used to allow migration to this machine from another control domain. Become superuser, or assume the appropriate role. Edit the xend-relocation-address, xend-relocation-hosts-allow, and xend-relocation-server properties of xvm/xend.