Go2Linux | Linux Operating System

Xen Virtualization Is a real good book for beginners to intermediate users looking for Xen documentation, it is written in an easy language, with examples which are easy to follow, and from which you can learn how Xen works, and also how to use it, but lets now go to the review.

Chapter 1: Introduction

On this chapter the author start explaining what virtual machines are, and how we can get advantage from them, also he explain the different ways to virtualize a machine, once he has our attention, goes to define Xen and how it works as well as some applications you may give to Xen in the real world, one of the best is to safe money by using only one PC to do the job of a lot of them, and also security as you can split your services between different Virtual machines, thus minise the risk of a hacker attack to all your services at once.

Chapter 2: Running Xen

In this chapter we will learn how to install and start Xen Dom0, which is the host for the virtual machines, it is installed on Fedora, and the author shows us how to install from binary packages, using yum and also from source, of course you can apply what you will learn here to install Xen in other distributions of Linux

Chapter 3: Creating Virtual Machines

At this point we are ready to start creating the virtual machines, and this is also one of my favorite chapters of the book, as the author teach us, how to install different operating systems

• Ubuntu
• NetBSD
• CentOS
• Slackware

and each of the using a different methods of installation, all with examples, and step by step instructions.

Chapter 4: Managing Xen

Here we learn how to install, configure and use three different managing tools, which are:

• xm
• XenMan
• virt-manager

Chapter 5: Networking

And out of some few exceptions a virtual machine is not useful if it is not networked, so in this chapter we learn how to network our Virtual Machine, and we explore different approaches like:

• Bridged Networking
• Routed Networking
• Vlan and NAT networking

Chapter 6: Storage

The author here focuses on how to store the files the Virtual Machine needs to exist, and there are three options explained in detail, with examples, and instructions.

• File Storage
• Network File System storage (NFS)
• Logical Volume Managed (LVM) storage

We learn how to set up each of them and also its advantages and disadvantages.

Chapter 7: Encryption

What is this world with no security?, well nothing, so on this chapter the author teach us how to encrypt our Virtual Machine information, once again all the instructions are given, and you just need to follow them step by step, to have the job done.

Chapter 8: Migration

This is a very important topic, and one of the advantages of virtual machines, is that you can migrate them from one server to another, and that could be needed because your server failed, you need more power, or just because you are upgrading your hardware, in this chapter we learn how to achieve that task.

Chapter 9: Xen Future

Here, the author touches some future technologies associated to Xen, but the evolution is to fast, that maybe when you got the book, those are not future but present technologies.

As you may see, with this book, you will be able to install, manage, and use Xen for any requirement you may have, so if you want to enter in the virtualization world, more specifically in para-virtualization world this book is a must for you, you will not regret after reading it.