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XenServer Virtual Machine Installation Guide Installing Linux VMs 16
Installing a Debian Lenny VM using the xe CLI
1. Create a VM using the Debian Lenny template. The UUID of the VM is returned:
xe vm-install template=Debian\ Lenny\ 5.0 new-name-label=<lenny-vm>
2. Specify the installation repository — this should be a standard Debian mirror with at least the packages
required to install the base system and the additional packages you plan to select during the Debian
installer:
xe vm-param-set uuid=<UUID> other-config:install-repository=<path_to_repository>
An example of a valid repository path is http://ftp.<xx>debian.org/debian where <xx> is your
country code (see the Debian mirror list for a list of these). For multiple installations Citrix recommends
using a local mirror or apt proxy to avoid generating excessive network traffic or load on the central
repositories.
3. Start the VM; it boots straight into the Debian installer:
xe vm-start uuid=<UUID>
4. Follow the Debian Installer procedure to install the VM in the configuration you require.
5. See below for instructions on how to install the guest utilities and how to configure graphical display.
Automated installation of Debian Lenny
Installation of Debian Lenny uses the standard Debian installer — you can use the usual Debian pre-seed
mechanism to support automated installation.
1. Create a pre-seed file. Information about pre-seed files is available in the appendices of the Debian
user guide.
2. Set the kernel command-line correctly for the VM before starting it. This can be doing when stepping
through the VM creation procedure in XenCenter, or by executing an xe CLI command like the following:
xe vm-param-set uuid=<uuid> PV-args=<preseed_arguments>
Apt repositories and Lenny
For infrequent or one-off installations of Lenny, it is reasonable to directly use a Debian mirror. However, if
you intend to do several VM installations, we recommend that you use a caching proxy or local mirror. Apt-
cacher is an implementation of proxy server that will keep a local cache of packages. debmirror is a tool
that will create a partial or full mirror of a Debian repository. Either of these tools can be installed into a VM.
Installing Red Hat, CentOS, and Oracle Linux from vendor
media
XenServer supports installation of the following Linux operating systems from vendor media in the XenServ-
er host DVD/CD-ROM drive:
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0-5.3, 32-bit
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0-5.3, 64-bit
• CentOS 4.5-4.6
• CentOS 5.0-5.3, 32-bit
• CentOS 5.0-5.3, 64-bit
• Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.0-5.2, 32-bit