IPFire XEN PV-Guest

norbeev · 30 November 2020 11:23

Hi Community,

i have search and found (at your “older” forum ?) only a little bit informations about installation on XEN-Server.
But, sorry, maybe long time ago, i found more informations (and Images maybe) especially for the
installation on XEN on your wiki, too.
My status-quo now is: It boots up-to
VFS: Cannot open root device “(null)” or unknown-block(0,0): error -6
Please append a correct “root=” boot option; here are the available partitions:
0100 16384 ram0
Could anyone help me ?

arne_f · 30 November 2020 14:53

IPFire doesn’t support XEN-PV anymore since we have dropped the PAE kernel. Only HVM is working.

norbeev · 30 November 2020 14:14

Dear Arne.F,

first of all, thank you for the very fast answer.
Oh, i look more precise on my system: xl info give at virt_caps = hvm, hvm_directio.
Does this mean, it supports “HVM”.
It was curious, because when i look at: /proc/cpuinfo there is no SVM.
That was the reason why i would try as PV-Guest.
Now i will check later if i could start IPFIRE as HVM-Guest.

OR IS IT NOT WORTH THE EFFORT ??

arne_f · 30 November 2020 14:37

Im not sure. I have not used xen since years. (It was before they switched from xm to xl)
If your system is capable to run windows guests it support hvm for sure.

On HVM Machine you should be able to use the normal ISO as installation source or the flashimage boot directly.

norbeev · 30 November 2020 14:52

Thank you very much for the fast answer, again.
Ok, i’ll try it and if it here are interest i’ll share my experience.

pike_it · 30 November 2020 15:29

I’d like you share your experience, if you can.

norbeev · 3 December 2020 15:08

First of all, i can say that the installation works now fine, because i works as HVM-Guest.
But, but, i could’nt ping my-DomU IPFire-Guest from the green-side.
I work to detect whats wrong. Maybe my IP-Tables on Host are not allowed traffic.
Bye, up to next time. If i resolve the problem i wil give more informations.

Update information: I’ve try another distro (xubu…) with the same network-configuration and get no connection to my client, too. Sorry, but i’m slowly desperate.

yosamite99 · 6 December 2020 17:20

Hi norbeev,

I’m using IPfire as a Xen DomU since quite a while. Are you running your own Xen server? Without some more details it’s hard to help. Can you please provide your bridge and DomU config and your version of Xen and qemu.

norbeev · 7 December 2020 11:41

Hi Yosamite,

nice to hear about you. Yes, i try now an own Xen Server.
Ok, here are my configuration-info:
XEN-Version = 4.11.4 on a Debian 10 Host with Debian Kernel 4.19.160-2

By the way, it looks like you give the crucial
hint for a another forum-member(ipfire on xen 4.11 - 2 bridge setup not working). I try it today.
And now there are other problems: I couldn’t boot into my ipfire again.
If i only start it as hvm-guest, the ipfire starts like a charm but i could not connect.

At other forums i hear, that i should not use bridged-networking but instead of routed/switched-networking for guests who have more than one network-interfaces.

yosamite99 · 7 December 2020 20:56

Hi, what is the desired IPfire setup? Green, red and blue and/or orange?
If you don’t need orange a possible setup would be a HVM with pci-passthrough for network red and blue.

But anyway, here is my working PVH config for IPfire:

I assume one of the bridges is for red, another maybe for blue. In this case I wouldn’t assign IPs on the host, that’s done from the IPfire side.

And of course you can use Open vSwitch instead of standard Linux bridges. But let’s first get your IPfire booting in PVH mode.

Best, Oliver

norbeev · 8 December 2020 07:44

Hi,
thank you for sharing your configuration.
But as i described previously my guest-system starts only in the hvm-mode.
Neverthtless, i will give your configuration a chance.
For my first System i only need two (green/red) interfaces.

And now, i could get tomorrow for the first time enter my ipfire-guest from outside via WEB-Interface.
For this i had change the green interface to Open vSwitch.
But the redside don’t works again. So i want change the redside to a Open vSwitch, too. But this works not, too.
My question is: Could i work with 2 Open vSwichtes at all. Or is this absolutely impossible.

norbeev · 10 December 2020 13:35

First of all, i’ll give a big thank you for all of the other community members.
Good news in case of my own question. Yes it works with to Open Vswitch. I’m now connected.
This letter, who i write comes through my own IPfire-Station.
More information about my configuration i’ll give next week.
Bye.