Setting Up Xen Tools

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Overview
This wiki describes how to install the Xen Tools onto the root filesystem. Xen Tools are a series of scripts that make setting up and managing virtualized guests much simpler. The Xen Tools are required to create DomU guests.

Prerequisites
Your system must be setup according to the method outlined in Xen J6 System Setup.

Package Dependencies
Install sbuild for cross-compilation environments, and qemu-user-static for chroot environments:

Install Xen Tools Package Dependencies on the Core Filesystem
Note that we're using the chroot-full command below. See Chroot-full Command for the definition of the chroot-full command.

Install the package dependencies for the Xen Tools:

Setup Crossbuild (Sbuild) Environment
The sbuild and schroot utilities provide an good environment for compiling binaries targeted at different architectures than your current machine (e.g. building an ARM binary on an x86 machine). Naturally, you can build the binaries directly on the target machine, but using schroot for cross-compilation is much quicker, and gives the full x86 and host machine support. Additionally, it gives you an environment where you can interchangeably use the host compiler and the cross-compiler for building.

Specifically for Xen Tools, the checker utility is only setup to run for the host machine's architecture, so we require an x86 compiler to run it. At the same time, the Xen Tools themselves naturally require the ARM cross-compiler. Thus, we need both compilers and their environments simultaneously, and the sbuild environment accomplishes this.

Create the sbuild environment, downloading the filesystem and packages, and setting up the configuration

Enable the crossbuild environment to work behind TI's proxy, for the git and apt utilities (this assumes that you've setup your host machine for TI's proxy already):

The git-proxy.sh command is used by git to operate behind's TI's proxy. This file needs to go into a location on the schroot filesystem where git can discover it. Above, we assume that the script resides in your bin folder.

Update the apt sources list, specifying that the main repository is amd64, and the ports repository is armhf:

Build and Install the Xen Tools
Clone the Xen source into the crossbuild environment:

Install the dependencies for the Xen Tools in the crossbuild environment:

Build the Xen Tools in the crossbuild environment:

Install the Xen Tools in the core filesystem:

Verify Xen Tools Installation
This section assumes that you've already successfully booted your J6 board with Xen. You can find instructions to do this under Booting with Xen on the J6.

Insert your SD card, and update your rootfs partition with the updated core filesystem:

Boot up your J6 board, and log on. Verify that the Xen Tools are installed and working properly:

If the Xen Tools are working properly, you should see output similar to this (naturally the specifics of each field will vary):

Next Steps
With the Xen Tools installed, you can now create and boot DomU guests.

For booting a virtualized kernel with Xen, see Booting with Xen on the J6.

For creating Linux DomU guests, see Creating DomU Guests on the J6 Board.