How to run .ova appliance on Debian Squeeze XEN host

Ok I never got an answer but I bit the bullet and went with my instincts. Here is what I did in case anyone might find this useful.

First of all remember the host(dom0) boots the guests(domU) using the kernels stored in the host. So the process:

1. apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
2. apt-get install udev
3. shutdown the guest (yes not reboot)

Then moving on to the host - I followed these instructions which are just a concise version of the longer xen upgrade page here.

With the host fully upgraded, it's time to fully upgrade the guests.

Edit the kernel and ramdisk parameters in /etx/xen/yourguest.cfg so that it matches whatever your host is running. In my case changed for example

kernel='/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-2-xen-amd64' to

kernel='/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-xen-amd64' (change ramdisk to the appropriate value)

I then used xm create to boot the guests, which loaded without a hitch. Then proceeded to apt-get dist-upgrade each guest in turn and voila! It's an all squeeze affair now.

/var/lib/xend/domains/*/config.sxp for configs where * is some cryptic value

/var/lib/xen/images/ contains the disk images