How to compile and install Xen kernel modules.

Introduction

This document describes the process of compiling a customer kernel and modules for your XS series of Xen virtual private server.

Setting up to compile

Several packages are necessary in order to compile your kernel and modules.
They are readily available under any distributions package manager.
(You may already have some of these installed.)

yum install gcc gcc-devel ncurses-devel make wget -y

Download Kernel

Any kernel from 2.6.23 on has the necessary Xen PV-OPS support in order to boot and run
on our XS virtual private servers. You may obtain a kernel from http://kernel.org

cd /usr/src
wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.34.tar.gz
tar -xzf linux-2.6.34.tar.gz

Configure Kernel and compile

make menuconfig

Ensure that the following features are turned on in your .config:

CONFIG_PARAVIRT_GUEST=y
CONFIG_XEN=y
CONFIG_XEN_BLKDEV_FRONTEND=y
CONFIG_XEN_NETDEV_FRONTEND=y
CONFIG_HVC_XEN=y

Check the Xen wiki for information on where these are under menuconfig:
http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/Kernel.org_Linux_on_Xen

Compile your kernel, its modules, and install them. (-j4 uses 4 processors to speed things up)

make clean; make -j4; make modules -j4; make modules_install; make install

You should now see your kernel under /boot, and your modules under /lib/modules.
Now you must setup Grub if you would like to boot this kernel, using PV-Grub.

Depreciated for older Xen kernels

The Xen kernels we provide include some of the more commonly asked for code already in place.
In addition, we have compiled many modules already, and have made them available for download.

To obtain the already built modules:

wget http://www.quantact.com/dl/2.6.16-xen.tgz

To compile your own modules:

wget http://www.quantact.com/dl/xen-source.tbz2
tar -xjf xen-source.tbz2
cd linux-2.6.16-xen
gzip -dc /proc/config.gz > .config
make
make menuconfig
make modules
make modules_install

If you get errors on the make menuconfig stage, be sure to install ncurses-devel.
When selecting modules to compile under make menuconfig, toggle the "M", not the "Y".

Inserting modules is accomplished via the command "modprobe module_name",
where module_name is the module you wish to install, such as "modprobe tuntap", etc.

If you receive an error stating:

modprobe: QM_MODULES: Function not implemented

You will need to download a more recent module init scripts package:
http://kerneltrap.org/node/3891