We host Windows based virtual servers on Xen host machines and to get the best performance from these systems, we add in the GPL’ed Paravirtualization drivers available on the Meadowcourt page.
Maybe I’m doing it wrong or the hard way, but when doing a fresh install of a Windows system, the only way of getting the drivers onto the new domU is to make a ‘throwaway’ model=e1000 VIF which I can use to download the drivers onto the system. Then after getting the drivers onto the system (all the while actually accessing the system via the VNC frame-buffer), I can properly configure the new and final interface(s).
I’ve come up with a slightly easier/faster way of getting the drivers onto the system: put them into ISO image and attach it to the domU so it looks like a CD-ROM from which I can run the driver installers.
Here is the result for anyone to download and do the same:
Here are some snippets from the xen cfg:
disk = [ "phy:/dev/vm5vg1/win7bench-disk,hda,w", # "file:/storage/iso/GPLPV-20130818.iso,ioemu:hdc:cdrom,r", # "file:/storage/iso/SW_DVD5_Win_Pro_7w_SP1_64BIT_English_-2_MLF_X17-59279.ISO,ioemu:hdc:cdrom,r", ] vif = [ # "bridge=xenbr999,model=e1000,vifname=win7bench-colo", "bridge=xenbr3,type=paravirtualized,vifname=win7bench-dmz", "bridge=xenbr999,type=paravirtualized,vifname=win7bench-colo", ]
I used Windows XP under VMWare Fusion on my Mac to download the drivers and created the ISO with MagicISO. I saved that to a shared directory with then Mac and then scp’ed the file to the Linux server. Hows that for geek?
ok, this shell script looks even more geekier:
https://github.com/tmartinx/xenlivecd/blob/master/arch-common/32-gen-windows-gplpv-drivers-iso.sh