Xen not booting on debian

Xen not booting on debian

[Andrew Brampton]

Hi,
I'm new to Xen, and I'm no linux expert so I hope this question isn't too 
newbish. I have been following the installation guide here: 
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/readmes/user/ but now I've 
hit a problem.

I have a Debian Testing install with a 2.4.27-1-386 kernel and installed the 
binaries of xen-2.0.3. I then edited my grub/menu.lst file to add this:

title Xen 2.0 / XenLinux 2.6.10
kernel /boot/xen.gz dom0_mem=131072
  module /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10-xen0 root=/dev/hda1 ro console=tty0
#  initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.4.27-1-386
  boot

Xen 2.0 appears on the boot menu, but when it attempts to boot it just hangs 
after displaying:
  Booting 'Xen 2.0 / XenLinux 2.6.10'

kernel /boot/xen.gz dom0_mem=131072
   [Multiboot-elf, <0x100000:0x4103c:0x3630c>, shtab=0x178078, 
entry=0x100000]
module /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10-xen0 root=/dev/hda1 ro console=tty0
   [Multiboot-module @ 0x179000, 0x408178 bytes]
boot

After that it doesn't appear to do anything, I'm unsure what to try now, is 
there a log file I can check? or some other option I can try?.
I did modify the menu.lst a few times trying different combinations. If I 
added the initrd option then grub fails with a error:
initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.4.27-1-386
Error 19: Linux kernel must be loaded before initrd

I also tried compiling Xen from source, which built & installed fine, but 
still I have the same problem.

Has anyone got any tips where I'm going wrong? I presume I've got a simple 
typo somewhere and its nothing complex. If you need more information I'm 
happy to provide it.

Thanks in advance
Andrew 



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Re: Xen not booting on debian

[Jan Kundrát]

Andrew Brampton wrote:
> title Xen 2.0 / XenLinux 2.6.10
> kernel /boot/xen.gz dom0_mem=131072
>  module /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10-xen0 root=/dev/hda1 ro console=tty0
> #  initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.4.27-1-386
>  boot

Do you have the "root=(hd0,0)" or something similar in your grub/menu.lst?

-jkt

-- 
cd /local/pub && more beer > /dev/mouth



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Re: Xen not booting on debian

[Derrik Pates]

Andrew Brampton wrote:
> title Xen 2.0 / XenLinux 2.6.10

Shouldn't you have a "root (hdX,Y)" here?

> kernel /boot/xen.gz dom0_mem=131072
>  module /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10-xen0 root=/dev/hda1 ro console=tty0
> #  initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.4.27-1-386

As pointed out in the directions, you need to load an initrd after the 
XenLinux kernel with a 'module' directive, instead of an 'initrd' directive.

> Xen 2.0 appears on the boot menu, but when it attempts to boot it just 
> hangs after displaying:
>  Booting 'Xen 2.0 / XenLinux 2.6.10'
> 
> kernel /boot/xen.gz dom0_mem=131072
>   [Multiboot-elf, <0x100000:0x4103c:0x3630c>, shtab=0x178078, 
> entry=0x100000]
> module /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10-xen0 root=/dev/hda1 ro console=tty0
>   [Multiboot-module @ 0x179000, 0x408178 bytes]
> boot

The only thing I can come up with is that either (a) it doesn't like 
your hardware, or (b) it's picking up the serial port as a serial 
console (I've never seen it do that, and I didn't think the hypervisor 
would auto-pickup a serial port...); what kind of hardware are you 
booting it on? (Processor type, chipset type, amount of memory, etc.)

-- 
Derrik Pates
demon@devrandom.net


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Re: Xen not booting on debian

[Andrew Brampton]

Jan Kundrát wrote:
> Do you have the "root=(hd0,0)" or something similar in your grub/menu.lst?

Thanks for the email
I didn't have a root entry, but adding it fails in the exact same way :(

I must note that I have my normal debian entry in my menu.lst and it looks 
almost identical to the Xen entry. The debian entry boots fine (and has 
always), but the Xen doesn't :(

Derrik Pates wrote:
> > #  initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.4.27-1-386
> As pointed out in the directions, you need to load an initrd after the 
> XenLinux kernel with a 'module' directive, instead of an 'initrd' 
> directive.

my bad, I didn't notice the slight change in directives, I tried it with 
module but still no joy :(

I've been doing some googling for Grub errors but found nothing useful.

Now that we may have determined its not Grub I guess it could be my machine 
(which I suspected in the first place). You will hate me, but I'm trying to 
run Xen inside a Microsoft Virtual PC 2004. This is on a Pentium 4 3.0Ghz. 
The Virtual PC has 128mb RAM, emulated Intel 440BX Chipset and a emulated 
AMI BIOS.

I know its a little strange running a VM inside a VM, but I only wanted to 
play with xen a little but I didn't have a spare linux box to play with. If 
people know of Virtual PC problems has anyone tried running this in VMWare?

Thanks
Andrew 



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Re: Xen not booting on debian

[Mark A. Williamson]

VMWare works (subject to the odd quirk) but I've not heard positive or 
negative reports with VirtualPC.

You could try QEmu (http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/), which I have had 
running Xen successfully.  It'll be slower than VPC but you may find you have 
more luck.  You might be able to shoehorn the VPC disk image in there, 
depending on its format and / or whether you can find a format converter...

HTH,
Mark

On Monday 17 January 2005 22:30, Andrew Brampton wrote:
> Jan Kundrát wrote:
> > Do you have the "root=(hd0,0)" or something similar in your
> > grub/menu.lst?
>
> Thanks for the email
> I didn't have a root entry, but adding it fails in the exact same way :(
>
> I must note that I have my normal debian entry in my menu.lst and it looks
> almost identical to the Xen entry. The debian entry boots fine (and has
> always), but the Xen doesn't :(
>
> Derrik Pates wrote:
> > > #  initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.4.27-1-386
> >
> > As pointed out in the directions, you need to load an initrd after the
> > XenLinux kernel with a 'module' directive, instead of an 'initrd'
> > directive.
>
> my bad, I didn't notice the slight change in directives, I tried it with
> module but still no joy :(
>
> I've been doing some googling for Grub errors but found nothing useful.
>
> Now that we may have determined its not Grub I guess it could be my machine
> (which I suspected in the first place). You will hate me, but I'm trying to
> run Xen inside a Microsoft Virtual PC 2004. This is on a Pentium 4 3.0Ghz.
> The Virtual PC has 128mb RAM, emulated Intel 440BX Chipset and a emulated
> AMI BIOS.
>
> I know its a little strange running a VM inside a VM, but I only wanted to
> play with xen a little but I didn't have a spare linux box to play with. If
> people know of Virtual PC problems has anyone tried running this in VMWare?
>
> Thanks
> Andrew
>
>
>
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> _______________________________________________
> Xen-devel mailing list
> Xen-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
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