Creating a Xen Virtual Machine

Once you have at least one system setup to host Xen instances and registered with Cloudmin, and have downloaded at least one Xen system image, you can create your first virtual system. The steps to do this are :

1. On the left menu, open the Create System link and click on Create Xen instance. This will open the Create New System page.
2. In the System hostname field, enter a short hostname for the new instance. This does not need to include a domain name - it will be appended automatically based on the Xen host selected.
3. In the System description field enter a short description, like Foo Corp's webserver.
4. From the Initial system image menu, select the OS image to install.
5. In the Root login mode section, select Using password and enter the root password to set for the new system into the adjacent field.
6. In the Webmin installation mode section you do not have to select anything if you have chosen to use an image with Virtualmin, as Webmin will be installed automatically.
7. Because the selected image may include old packages, you should set the Update Virtualmin packages? field to Yes, so that Cloudmin will install all available updates after instance creation.
8. From the Xen hosting system menu, select the host on which this Xen system should be created. It is generally a good idea to spread your instances across hosts to avoid putting too much load on a single system.
9. If the new Xen system with run Virtualmin, you should increase the Memory allocated to instance field to 512 MB, or even more if the host system has enough RAM.
10. By default, Xen instances created from images with Virtualmin Pro have 2 GB filesystems, while those without it get 1 GB. In both cases, there is only about 500 MB free. To increase the size of the instance's filesystem, use the Disk space allocated to instance field.
11. If the image contains Virtualmin Pro, you will need to select a license for it using the License for Virtualmin from image field. See the Virtualmin Licenses page for more details on aquiring and registering licenses, so that they can be easily allocated at system creation time.
12. Finally, click the Create System button to start the creation process.

Because Xen instance creation involves the copying and uncompression of large filesystem images, the creation process may take 5 to 10 minutes. However, Cloudmin will display each step in the process as it is run, including copying the image file, un-compressing it, modifying the Xen filesystem to set the root password and IP address, and finally starting up the instance.

Assuming that everything works, the new virtual system will be added to the left menu. You will be able to use Cloudmin to rebooting, shut it down, start it up, or create Virtualmin domains on it, just as you could for any real system. If you no longer need this Xen instance, it can be completely removed with the Delete System link on the left menu.