xen virtualisation notes for debian

Important lines in a xen definition file such as xen_deb83_build:
- Use hardware virtualisation to get a virtual bios from which you can boot a virtual cdrom.
- Use hda (not xvda) for your disk type for driver support in debian.

builder = "hvm"
disk = [ '/virt/extloop/mixdeb83_build.img,raw,hda,rw', 
         '/virt/install_images/debian8.3/debian-8.3.0-amd64-CD-1.iso,raw,hdc:cdrom,r', ]

20GB is plenty for a build server, and 10GB for a test server.
Keep a backup so you can easily reinstall the application
on a fresh OS install without needing to perform the OS install again.

-rw-r--r--  root 21474836480 ... /virt/extloop/mixdeb83_build.img
-rw-r--r--  root 10737418240 ... /virt/extloop/mixdeb83_test.img
-rw-r--r--  root   456279772 ... /virt/extloop/mixdeb83_test.img.BASECOPY.xz
-rw-r--r--  root   657457152 ... /virt/install_images/debian8.3/debian-8.3.0-amd64-CD-1.iso
