Hard disk benchmark

HD benchmarking is easy with bonnie++

# apt-get install bonnie
# mkdir /store/bench
# chown randradas:randradas /store/bench & chmod 755 /store/bench
# bonnie++ -d /store/bench -s 6600 -x 5 -u randradas:randradas -q -f 2>&1 | tee bonnie++.LOG &

Change 6600 to two times your ram to get a good result.

Forwarding proxy with Apache

Edit prx.confwith the next Apache directives and adapt it to your port and directory requirements:

LoadModule proxy_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_proxy_http.so
LoadModule authz_host_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_authz_host.so

Listen 8887

ProxyRequests On
#put < and > to the next directive
 Proxy *
   Order Deny,Allow
   Deny from all 
   Allow from 10.0.0.0/24
#put < and > to the next directive
 /Proxy

LogLevel warn
CustomLog /home/randradas/prx/access.log combined
ErrorLog /home/randradas/prx/error.log
PidFile /home/randradas/prx/apache.pid

Run the proxy with as normal user:

$ /usr/sbin/apache2 -f prx.conf

And then connect to the proxy from your http client, the server is listening in the 8887 port.

Resize Xen disk image

losetup -f
losetup /dev/loop0 disk.img
e2fsck -f /dev/loop0
resize2fs /dev/loop0 6G
   resize2fs 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
   Resizing the filesystem on /dev/loop0 to 1572864 (4k) blocks.
   The filesystem on /dev/loop0 is now 1572864 blocks long.
e2fsck -f /dev/loop0
losetup -d /dev/loop0

losetup /dev/loop0 disk.img
fsck -n /dev/loop0
fsck 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
e2fsck 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
/dev/loop0: clean, 112769/786432 files, 458389/1572864 blocks
eddard:/xens/domains/beta.osor.eu# tune2fs -O ^has_journal /dev/loop0
tune2fs 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
eddard:/xens/domains/beta.osor.eu# e2fsck -f /dev/loop0
   e2fsck 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
   Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
   Pass 2: Checking directory structure
   Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
   Pass 4: Checking reference counts
   Pass 5: Checking group summary information
   /dev/loop0: 112769/786432 files (0.6% non-contiguous), 425587/1572864 blocks

For example, to create a 2GB sparse file-backed virtual block device (actually only consumes 1KB of disk):

    # dd if=/dev/zero of=vm1disk bs=1k seek=2048k count=1 

Make a file system in the disk file:

    # mkfs -t ext3 vm1disk 

(when the tool asks for confirmation, answer `y')

Populate the file system e.g. by copying from the current root:

# mount -o loop vm1disk /mnt
# cp -ax /{root,dev,var,etc,usr,bin,sbin,lib} /mnt
# mkdir /mnt/{proc,sys,home,tmp}

Tailor the file system by editing /etc/fstab, /etc/hostname, etc. Don't forget to edit the files in the mounted file system, instead of your domain 0 filesystem, e.g. you would edit /mnt/etc/fstab instead of /etc/fstab. For this example put /dev/sda1 to root in fstab.

Now unmount (this is important!):

    # umount /mnt 

In the configuration file set:

    disk = ['file:/full/path/to/vm1disk,sda1,w']