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authorrjones <rjones>2009-03-24 09:38:31 +0000
committerrjones <rjones>2009-03-24 09:38:31 +0000
commit91df7a164befc0c9a24f85733837874da5a057ac (patch)
tree75d669b629bb70c2b13da6af4e13642e65c645ab /README
parent09c16b5da0ec982bfffe654a55abd637a3335c95 (diff)
downloadlibguestfs-91df7a164befc0c9a24f85733837874da5a057ac.tar.gz
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Now using febootstrap.
Diffstat (limited to 'README')
-rw-r--r--README119
1 files changed, 16 insertions, 103 deletions
diff --git a/README b/README
index 9306b5cc..c8b42424 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -30,23 +30,13 @@ For discussion please use the fedora-virt mailing list:
Requirements
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-- nfs-utils source, unpacked
- http://download.sourceforge.net/nfs
-
- Recent QEMU with vmchannel support
-- Compiled Linux kernels for 32 and/or 64 bit (see note below).
-
-- mkinitrd
-
-- cpio
+- febootstrap >= 1.2
- XDR, rpcgen
-- If you are running a 64 bit or non-x86 machine, see note below.
-
-We don't support initramfs at the moment. Patches gratefully
-received.
+- (Optional) Local Fedora mirror
Running ./configure will check you have all the requirements installed
on your machine.
@@ -55,41 +45,14 @@ on your machine.
Building
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-Unpack nfs-utils source into a directory somewhere, then create a
-symlink daemon/nfs-utils to where you unpacked it. For example:
+Then make the daemon, library and root filesystem:
- pushd daemon
- tar zxf /path/to/nfs-utils-1.1.4.tar.gz
- ln -s nfs-utils-1.1.4 nfs-utils
- popd
-
-For nfs-utils 1.1.4, you may find that the patch
-(nfs-utils-1.1.4-build.patch) helps.
-
-Then make the library and shell tools:
-
- ./configure
+ ./configure [--mirror=URI]
make
-Make the daemon and NFS server:
- mkdir daemon/build
- pushd daemon/build
- ../configure [--disable-nfsv4 --disable-gss]
- make
- popd
-
-For 64 bit you'll probably want to build the 32 bit daemon and NFS
-server too:
-
- mkdir daemon/build-32
- pushd daemon/build-32
- ../configure --enable-32bit [--disable-nfsv4 --disable-gss]
- make
- popd
-
-For complex cross-architecture environments, you may want to build
-other versions of the daemon and NFS server as well. See the note
-below.
+Use the optional --mirror parameter to specify the URI of a local
+Fedora mirror. See the discussion of the MIRROR parameter in the
+febootstrap(8) manpage.
Finally run the tests:
@@ -100,69 +63,19 @@ these commands as root:
make install
- pushd daemon/build
- make install
- popd
- # Repeat for each daemon/build* directory you made above.
-
-
-Note on 64 bit and non-x86 architectures
+Notes on cross-architecture support
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-The library runs the Linux kernel code in QEMU. It also runs a small
-control daemon inside QEMU. It might also run an NFS server. It
-might also run programs from the guest's disk/environment (if asked to).
+At the moment we basically don't support cross-architecture or
+32-on-64. This limits what is possible for some guests. Filesystem
+operations and NFS export will work fine, but running commands in
+guests may not be possible.
-This leaves open the question of which QEMU do we run, eg. qemu (the
-i386 emulator) or qemu-system-x86_64 or qemu-system-ppc64 or ...?
+To enable this requires work for cross-architecture and 32-on-64
+support in febootstrap.
-Several factors influence the choice:
-
-(a) The host architecture.
-
-(b) The guest architecture.
-
-(c) What kernel(s) we find at runtime.
-
-(d) What compiler(s) we find at configure time.
-
-(e) In general, we would prefer to run a 32 bit kernel over a 64 bit
-kernel, because that reduces the amount of system memory we have to
-give to qemu significantly, and makes libguestfs smaller, faster and
-use less memory.
-
-For example, if (a) the host is x86-64, then it might be running a
-mixture of (b) i386 and x86-64 guests. Disk formats are stable, even
-across 32 and 64 bit and endianness changes, so it doesn't really
-matter what kernel we use if we just want to access files in the
-guest. In the absence of any other factors, we would choose an i386
-kernel and run it in plain 'qemu', because that would use the least
-amount of memory.
-
-But if we wanted to enable the feature of running a guest program in
-an x86-64 guest, then we have to run an x86-64 kernel and
-qemu-system-x86_64 (an i386 kernel can't run 64 bit programs). The
-same applies if we didn't find a 32 bit kernel at runtime, or if we
-couldn't run "gcc -m32" at configure time (because we can't compile
-the daemon).
-
-SO: to enable maximum features on 64 bit architectures:
-
-(1) Ensure that "gcc -m32" can create usable binaries.
-
-(2) Provide 32 and 64 bit kernels binaries at runtime.
-
-If you have a really weird environment, eg. you want to run programs
-inside PPC64 guests on your MIPS machine, then:
-
-(3) Provide gcc cross-compiler and glibc for each architecture, and
-cross-compile the daemon and NFS server:
-
- mkdir daemon/build-ppc64
- pushd daemon/build-ppc64
- ../configure --host=ppc64-gnu-linux
- make
- popd
+The daemon/ directory contains its own configure script. This is so
+that in future we will be able to cross-compile the daemon.
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