We have an R710 dell server with 6x585 GB. We are using a single RAID5 virtual disks to avoid to loose space. In this configuration the overall size of our Virtual disk is around 2.7 TB.
To handle more than 2 TB the UEFI has been activated in place of the legacy bios to activate the GPT option (http://www.novell.com/support/kb/doc.php?id=7003263).
But our goal is to use the virtualization with Xen and It seems that xen server dom0 cannot boot from the UEFI/ELILO.
Are there a solution to this issue ? Maybe with an other boot loader ?
Or must we swith back to the BIOS / MBR and to break the current raid configuration ?
We have an R710 dell server with 6x585 GB. We are using a single RAID5
virtual disks to avoid to loose space.[/color]
I would like to suggest a different approach.
Disk space is quite inexpensive these days and considering all the many
issues we have to deal with you should configure your storage to
optimise on performance and manageability - not space.
If this is a single physical server solution that will run Xen with
multiple DomU’s, I suggest you configure your storage to provide
multiple LUN’s, logical volumes, or whatever Dell calls them. The point
is that they should appear to the OS as multiple drives.
The first drive is for SLES (your Dom0). It should be large enough to
accommodate /boot, swap, and /, partitions as well as enough space to
hold all your iso images and installation sources for your DomU’s. Not
knowing your specific needs, I’d guess 50 to 200 gigabytes. One or more
additional LUN’s will be used by your Dom0 to provide storage for your
DomU’s.
How you provide storage for your DomU’s is another issue. Assuming you
intend to use block device storage for your DomU’s, one option is to
create separate or multiple LUN’s for each DomU. This is a good option
if your Dell storage management software allows you to increase the
size of a LUN when additional storage is needed by a DomU. Another
option is to create one or more LUN’s that contain most of the
available storage space and use your Dom0 to create logical volumes for
your DomU’s.
You have many options. The important thing is to create a separate
smaller drive on which you will install your OS.
–
Kevin Boyle - Knowledge Partner
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You may also consider installing the Dom0 on a USB stick and use the RAID array for storing the VMs. Takes longer to install it (USB sticks are not very fast), but then it runs fine. Also, you can periodically clone your USB stick (via dd) and have a replacement ready in case of failure. Don’t forget to mount /var/log and /tmp in tmpfs, this will extend you r USB stick’s life. If you need to store the log files (and not loose them every time you reboot your Dom0) - use syslog.
I have a few systems made like this and they run fine so far.