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Re: [Xen-users] methods of porting RHEL PV guests to real hardware

To: Ray Barnes <tical.net@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Xen-users] methods of porting RHEL PV guests to real hardware
From: Thaddeus Hogan <thaddeus@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:42:34 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: Xen users mailing list <xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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----- "Ray Barnes" <tical.net@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> But how to get an initrd that closely matches the real hardware
> without *a lot* of trial and error whilst manually specifying the
> kernel modules that you think the real box will use?
> 
> -Ray
> 

Of course an easy, if not somewhat brute force way to do this is to install 
RHEL on the target and then copy most of the filesystem over (bin, sbin, usr, 
opt, var, etc, and lib <- but don't whack the existing modules dir).

Usually all you need in an initrd is enough to get the root volume online and 
the rest of the modules can be loaded from disk.  This should include the 
storage controller and and device mapper features you are using like LVM.  I've 
had to peel open a RHEL 5 initrd a couple times while setting up boot from SAN 
+ multipath, and there really wasn't a lot in there.

I would start with scsi_mod, sd_mod, dm_mod, and then any specific hardware 
module for your HBA.  For specific hardware, it may take some research to 
identify the module name and all dependencies without having a system running 
those modules.

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