openSUSE Leap Documentation › Virtualization Guide › Managing Virtual Machines with Xen › Block Devices in Xen
ContentsContents
Virtualization Guide
  1. About This Manual
  2. I Introduction
    1. 1 Virtualization Technology
    2. 2 Introduction to Xen Virtualization
    3. 3 Introduction to KVM Virtualization
    4. 4 Introduction to Linux Containers
    5. 5 Virtualization Tools
    6. 6 Installation of Virtualization Components
    7. 7 Supported Guests, Hosts and Features
  3. II Managing Virtual Machines with libvirt
    1. 8 Starting and Stopping libvirtd
    2. 9 Guest Installation
    3. 10 Basic VM Guest Management
    4. 11 Connecting and Authorizing
    5. 12 Managing Storage
    6. 13 Managing Networks
    7. 14 Configuring Virtual Machines
  4. III Hypervisor-Independent Features
    1. 15 Disk Cache Modes
    2. 16 VM Guest Clock Settings
    3. 17 libguestfs
  5. IV Managing Virtual Machines with Xen
    1. 18 Setting Up a Virtual Machine Host
    2. 19 Virtual Networking
    3. 20 Managing a Virtualization Environment
    4. 21 Block Devices in Xen
    5. 22 Virtualization: Configuration Options and Settings
    6. 23 Administrative Tasks
    7. 24 XenStore: Configuration Database Shared between Domains
    8. 25 Xen as a High-Availability Virtualization Host
  6. V Managing Virtual Machines with QEMU
    1. 26 QEMU Overview
    2. 27 Setting Up a KVM VM Host Server
    3. 28 Guest Installation
    4. 29 Running Virtual Machines with qemu-system-ARCH
    5. 30 Virtual Machine Administration Using QEMU Monitor
  7. VI Managing Virtual Machines with LXC
    1. 31 Linux Containers
    2. 32 Migration from LXC to libvirt-lxc
  8. Glossary
  9. A Virtual Machine Drivers
  10. B Appendix
  11. C XM, XL Toolstacks and Libvirt framework
  12. D GNU Licenses
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21 Block Devices in Xen

21.1 Mapping Physical Storage to Virtual Disks
21.2 File-Backed Virtual Disks and Loopback Devices
21.3 Resizing Block Devices

21.1 Mapping Physical Storage to Virtual Disks

The disk(s) specification for a Xen domain in the domain configuration file is as straightforward as the following example: 

disk = [ 'format=raw,vdev=hdc,access=ro,devtype=cdrom,target=/root/image.iso' ]

It defines a disk block device based on the /root/image.iso disk image file. The disk will be seen as hdc by the guest, with read-only (ro) access. The type of the device is cdrom with raw format.

The following example defines an identical device, but using simplified positional syntax: 

disk = [ '/root/image.iso,raw,hdc,ro,cdrom' ]

You can include more disk definitions in the same line, each one separated by a comma. If a parameter is not specified, then its default value is taken: 

disk = [ '/root/image.iso,raw,hdc,ro,cdrom','/dev/vg/guest-volume,,hda','...' ]
List of Parameters
target

Source block device or disk image file path.

format

The format of the image file. Default is raw.

vdev

Virtual device as seen by the guest. Supported values are hd[x], xvd[x], sd[x] etc. See /usr/share/doc/packages/xen/html/misc/vbd-interface.txt for more details. This parameter is mandatory.

access

Whether the block device is provided to the guest in read-only or read-write mode. Supported values are ro or r for read-only, and rw or w for read/write access. Default is ro for devtype=cdrom, and rw for other device types.

devtype

Qualifies virtual device type. Supported value is cdrom.

backendtype

The back-end implementation to use. Supported values are phy, tap, and qdisk. Normally this option should not be specified as the back-end type is automatically determined.

script

Specifies that target is not a normal host path, but rather information to be interpreted by the executable program. The specified script file is looked for in /etc/xen/scripts if it does not point to an absolute path. These scripts are normally called block-<script_name>.

For more information on virtual disk specification see /usr/share/doc/packages/xen/html/misc/xl-disk-configuration.txt.

21.2 File-Backed Virtual Disks and Loopback Devices

When a virtual machine is running, each of its file-backed virtual disks consumes a loopback device on the host. By default, the host allows up to 64 loopback devices to be consumed.

To simultaneously run more file-backed virtual disks on a host, you can increase the number of available loopback devices by adding the following option to the host’s /etc/modprobe.conf.local file. 

options loop max_loop=x

where x is the maximum number of loopback devices to create.

Changes take effect after the module is reloaded.

Tip
Tip

Enter rmmod loop and modprobe loop to unload and reload the module. In case rmmod does not work, unmount all existing loop devices or reboot the computer.

21.3 Resizing Block Devices

While it is always possible to add new block devices to a VM Guest system, it is sometimes more desirable to increase the size of an existing block device. In case such a system modification is already planned during deployment of the VM Guest, some basic considerations should be done:

  • Use a block device that may be increased in size. LVM devices and file system images are commonly used.

  • Do not partition the device inside the VM Guest, but use the main device directly to apply the file system. For example, use /dev/xvdb directly instead of adding partitions to /dev/xvdb.

  • Make sure that the file system to be used can be resized. Sometimes, for example with ext3, some features must be switched off to be able to resize the file system. A file system that can be resized online and mounted is XFS. Use the command xfs_growfs to resize that file system after the underlying block device has been increased in size. For more information about XFS, see man 8 xfs_growfs.

When resizing an LVM device that is assigned to a VM Guest, the new size is automatically known to the VM Guest. No further action is needed to inform the VM Guest about the new size of the block device.

When using file system images, a loop device is used to attach the image file to the guest. For more information about resizing that image and refreshing the size information for the VM Guest, see Section 23.2, “Sparse Image Files and Disk Space”.

→Chapter 22 Virtualization: Configuration Options and Settings←Chapter 20 Managing a Virtualization Environment
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