How to change the console display size of a XEN VM

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 2
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 4

Situation

Change the VNC resolution of a VM

Resolution

For Fully Virtualized (FV) VM's, change the resolution in the VM using the screen resolution tools provided by the OS.

- To change the VNC resolution of a FV SLES 11 VM to 1024x768 using 8MB of memory, edit the file /boot/grub/menu.lst and add the following line to the end of the kernel line:

xenfb.video="8.1024.768"

- For SLES 10, the same parameter is needed. However it must be added to the extra boot parameters of the configuration.

For Paravirtualized systems the VM's configuration file needs to be modified.

If the VM is manged with Virtual Machine Manager:

1. Export the DomU config with: "xm list --long 'domU' >domu.conf"
2. Add the arguments line:
...
(image
     (linux
          (kernel )
          (args ' xenfb.video=8,1024,768')
          (device_model /usr/lib64/xen/bin/qemu-dm)
...
3. Delete the DomU from the xen store: "xm delete 'domU' "
4. Load the new config "xm new -F domu.conf"
5. Start the VM and test the VNC connection.

If the VM is started using "xm create":

Edit the /etc/xen/vm/ config file for the vm.

Disclaimer

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