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XenServer Virtual Machine Installation Guide Installing Linux VMs 18
screens. Choosing to continue using VNC and setting a password will enable the Switch to Graphical
Console button.
Installing Linux from a network installation server to a VM
The XenServer guest installer allows you to install an operating system from a network-accessible copy of
vendor media onto a VM. In preparation for installing from vendor media, you need to make an exploded
network repository of your vendor media (not ISO images), exported over NFS, HTTP or FTP accessible to
the XenServer host administration interface. See Appendix B, Setting Up a Red Hat Installation Server for
information on how to copy a set of installation CDs to a network drive.
The network repository must be accessible from the control domain of the XenServer host, normally using
the management interface. The URL must point to the base of the CD/DVD image on the network server,
and be of the form:
• HTTP
http://<server>/<path>
• FTP
ftp://<server>/<path>
• NFS
nfs://<server>/<path> or nfs://<server>/<path>
Note that when using the NFS installation method from XenCenter, the nfs:// style of path should always
be used. XenCenter will then modify this into the correct form when passing it to the server automatically.
When using the CLI as per the instructions below, the appropriate form must be chosen manually. In the
case of SUSE-based distributions this is the nfs://<server>/<path> style, and in the case of Red-Hat
based distributions this is nfs:<server>:/<path>.
The XenServer New VM wizard provides an additional step for vendor-installable templates which prompts
for the repository URL. When using the CLI, install the template as normal using vm-install and then set the
other-config:install-repository parameter to the value of the URL. When the VM is subsequently started,
it will begin the network installation process.
Note
When installing a new Linux-based VM, it is important to fully finish the installation and reboot it before
performing any other operations on it. This is analogous to not interrupting a Windows installation —
which would leave you with a non-functional VM.
To install a Linux VM from a network-accessible copy of vendor media using the CLI
1. Run the command
xe vm-install template=<template> new-name-label=<name_for_vm> \
sr-uuid=<storage_repository_uuid>
This command returns the UUID of the new VM.
2. Find the UUID of the network that you want to connect to. For example, if it is the one attached to xenbr0:
xe network-list bridge=xenbr0 --minimal