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Re: [Xen-users] Can't boot HVM Linux guests on Debian Squeeze Dom0

Success! I was able to boot my HVM sarge guest after making two changes.

The first repaired a simple mistake - I had partitioned a single disk image using the installer in qemu with a swap and an everything else partition. The "Domain not found" error went away as soon as I replaced the erroneous "hda1" with "hda" in the disk parameter.

The second is more of a long-standing problem. In order to get the guest to boot, I need to completely disable networking by commenting out the vif=[] line. Trying to use networking, even with the defaults, results in the "xenbr0 not found" error seen earlier in /var/log/xen/qemu-dm-sarge.

Another question I have is this: had anybody had any luck using tap:aio on Xen4.0/Debian? Simply replacing "file:" with "tap:aio" did not work. I would love to take advantage of the efficiency of the aio driver, so any advice with regards to this would be appreciated!

Garrett Robinson

On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 12:13 PM, Garrett Robinson <Garrett.Robinson@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Thanks to all for the replies!

I checked xm info and virt_caps, and my machine does display the correct listings there for hardware virtualization.

Commenting out the sdl, serial and shadow_memory parameters in the configuration file unfortuantely did not change the problem in any way. If only life were so simple!

The output from the xend.log file is, of course, enormous. It is attached.

The much more manageable log file is /var/log/xen/qemu-dm-sarge, which has interesting errors related to both networking and the tap driver.

Output of /var/log/xen/qemu-dm-sarge:
domid: 10
-c config qemu network with xen bridge for
tap10.0 xenbr0
bridge xenbr0 does not exist!
/etc/xen/scripts/qemu-ifup: could not launch network script
Could not initialize device 'tap'

I'd really appreciate any help! I'm not sure why the tap device even needs to be initialized, as I'm using file: for disk access. And isn't xenbr0 the default bridge?

On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 6:03 AM, John Weekes <lists.xen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I just downloaded Debian Squeeze and installed Xen from packages, following the instructions here: http://wiki.debian.org/Xen
I am able to get PV guests up and running easily, but HVM guests will not even boot.

The HVM I am currently trying to run is Debian sarge, which I installed into a disk image and configured using qemu.
I am running on an HP Proliant ML150G6, which has Intel-VT hardware virtualization. One strange thing that I noticed is both

grep vmx /proc/cpuinfo
grep svm /proc/cpuinfo

return nothing, although according to the BIOS settings the Intel-VT extensions are enabled.

This is normal. If things are working properly, "xm info" should show "hvm" under "virt_caps" for you (it will just be masked in cpuinfo).


On trying to boot my HVM guest (xm create sarge.cfg), several different things would happen. At I fiddled with the configuration file for the VM a bit in attempts to get things working, it seems to have settled on the following. It prints

Using config file "./sarge.cfg"

and then hangs for a looong time, at least one minute. After waiting a bit, it prints 

Error: Domain 'sarge' does not exist.

and quits.

I would really appreciate any advice or insight into this problem and possible solutions! I am including the configuration file for the VM in question, please let me know if more information would be useful:


import os, re
arch = os.uname()[4]
if re.search('64', arch):
        arch_libdir = 'lib64'
else:
        arch_libdir = 'lib'

device_model = '/usr/' + arch_libdir + '/xen-4.0/bin/qemu-dm'

name = 'sarge'
kernel = '/usr/lib/xen-default/boot/hvmloader'
builder = 'hvm'
memory = 256
shadow_memory = 16
vcpus = 1
disk = [
 ]
vif = [ 'type=ioemu, bridge=xenbr0' ]
>
>
>

boot="cda"

sdl=0
vnc=1
vncconsole=1
vncunused=1
stdvga=0
serial='pty'

Try removing these, at minimum:

sdl=0
serial='pty'

I've had the problem that you're seeing with "serial='pty'", in particular.

If it still won't boot, try removing:

shadow_memory = 16

If there are still problems, then, try running tail -f /var/log/xen/*.log while starting your domain, and see what messages Xen is kicking out.

-John



--
Garrett Robinson
(484) 802-3882
Oberlin College '11




--
Garrett Robinson
(484) 802-3882
Oberlin College '11

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