Xen Workshop Infrastructure

This repository contains the pre-configured images and scripts required to run a Xen Hypervisor (v4.17) environment on Debian 12 using Nested Virtualization.

---

🚀 Getting Started

1. Using VMware (Recommended for Performance)

The image is stored in .ova format and includes all boot configurations.

• Location: Download here (I promise, no virus:))
• Instructions:
  1. Import the .ova file into VMware Workstation or Player.
  2. Critical Check: Before powering on, go to Settings -> Processors and ensure "Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI" is checked.
  3. Start the VM. It will automatically boot into the Xen Hypervisor.
  4. Verification: Run sudo xl list in the terminal.

---

2. Using QEMU (Command Line)

For QEMU, we use a .qcow2 image and a launch script that enables KVM acceleration.

• Image Location: Download here
• Script Location: run_qemu.sh

Instructions

Enter the workshop's repo (if you haven't yet, clone it on your device), and run these commands on your device:

chmod +x run_qemu.sh
./run_qemu.sh /path/to/your/.qcow

The user and password are student.

Now you have a working CLI environment with Xen.

3. Using VirtualBox

Firstly make sure to install VirtualBox from the Official Source.

After succesfull install, to install Xen, please refer to the guide in VBOXSETUP.md.

4. Workshop Tasks

If you made it here, congrats! Now you can continue on with the workshop by following the tasks in the ./workshop-tasks directory, in order of difficulty: Tasks-Basic.md, Advanced-Config.md, and if you're feeling adventurous, you can build Xen from source by following: Build-From-Source.md.