RE: Xen on VMware - how to install ? - SOLVED

RE: Xen on VMware - how to install ? - SOLVED

[JHJE (Jan Holst Jensen)]

Hi Keir and Ian.

Up and running now. The problem seems to be with VMware Workstation
4.0.1.

Both VMware GSX 2.5.1 and VMware Workstation 4.0.5 happily boots a
xen-ified RedHat 9. I originally tried the demo CD on VMware GSX 2.5.1
but it was not happy. So I tried VMware workstation which is 4.0.1 on my
home PC. I now tried it at work where I run 4.0.5 and that works like a
charm.

The working setup is as in my first posting:

Copy xen.gz and xenolinux.gz from the demo CD's /usr/boot/ to the
harddisk's /boot. Add this to grub's menu.lst:

title Xen
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /xen.gz dom0_mem=64000 watchdog noreboot ignorebiostables
	module /xenolinux.gz root=/dev/sda2 ro console=tty0

Sorry for your trouble, and thanks again.

Cheers

-- Jan


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Re: Xen on VMware - how to install ? - SOLVED

[Zachary Amsden]

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Hi Jan,

I tried to reproduce this under VMware Workstation 4.0.1, but I have no 
trouble booting XenoLinux using the exact configuration you give below.  
I am guessing that a complete boot failure would most likely be caused 
by Grub loading the kernel incorrectly?  I attached a screenshot in case 
you see anything extremely different.

Thanks,

Zachary Amsden
zach@vmware.com


JHJE (Jan Holst Jensen) wrote:

>Hi Keir and Ian.
>
>Up and running now. The problem seems to be with VMware Workstation
>4.0.1.
>
>Both VMware GSX 2.5.1 and VMware Workstation 4.0.5 happily boots a
>xen-ified RedHat 9. I originally tried the demo CD on VMware GSX 2.5.1
>but it was not happy. So I tried VMware workstation which is 4.0.1 on my
>home PC. I now tried it at work where I run 4.0.5 and that works like a
>charm.
>
>The working setup is as in my first posting:
>
>Copy xen.gz and xenolinux.gz from the demo CD's /usr/boot/ to the
>harddisk's /boot. Add this to grub's menu.lst:
>
>title Xen
>	root (hd0,0)
>	kernel /xen.gz dom0_mem=64000 watchdog noreboot ignorebiostables
>	module /xenolinux.gz root=/dev/sda2 ro console=tty0
>
>Sorry for your trouble, and thanks again.
>
>Cheers
>
>-- Jan
>
>
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>Learn developer strategies Cisco, Motorola, Ericsson & Lucent use to deliver
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>_______________________________________________
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>  
>

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RE: Xen on VMware - how to install ? - SOLVED

[JHJE (Jan Holst Jensen)]

> I tried to reproduce this under VMware Workstation 4.0.1, but 
> I have no trouble booting XenoLinux using the exact configuration you 
> give below.  
> I am guessing that a complete boot failure would most likely 
> be caused by Grub loading the kernel incorrectly?  I attached a 
> screenshot in case you see anything extremely different.

Hi Zachary.

At first glance I see that you are running VMware on Linux and I was
doing it on Windows 2000. Don't know if there is an underlying
difference in the VMware engine (guess not) on those platforms ?

On the machine that causes a stack fault, xenolinux.gz was loaded @
0x24c000 (I am guessing that that is what the grub (?) message
"[Multiboot-module @ 0x2....]" means), while the ones that booted
successfully loaded xenolinux.gz at 0x26d000. Your screenshot is too far
into the boot process to show where xenolinux.gz was loaded, but my
guess is that yours would display 0x26d000. Can you confirm that ?

To find where the problem really is (VMware versus VM image), I should
try and swap the booting/non-booting images between work and home. That
is about 6 GB of data, so I can't do it right now, but I'll check up on
it one of the following days.

Cheers

-- Jan


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RE: Xen on VMware - how to install ? - SOLVED

[JHJE (Jan Holst Jensen)]

> > I am guessing that a complete boot failure would most likely 
> > be caused by Grub loading the kernel incorrectly?  I attached a 
> > screenshot in case you see anything extremely different.
>
> To find where the problem really is (VMware versus VM image), I 
> should try and swap the booting/non-booting images between work 
> and home. That is about 6 GB of data, so I can't do it right now,
> but I'll check up on it one of the following days.

OK, to summarize:

At home I am running VMware Workstation 4.0.1 on Windows 2000 Prof.
At work I am running VMware Workstation 4.0.5 on Windows 2000 Prof.

I have two VM-images:

(1) A minimal RedHat 9.0 (no packages) installed at home.
(2) A full RedHat 9.0 (all packages) installed at work.

Both VMs have Xen installed exactly the same way. Both VMs boot properly
into normal Linux. (1) does a kernel stack fault on booting Xen, while
(2) boots Xen without problems. Same behavior at home and at work.

So it must be differences in the VM boot configuration that is to blame
(grub) and not VMware. A diff also shows that /boot/grub/stage2 differs
between the two VMs. After a few attempts at copying the grub setup from
VM (2) to VM (1) I have given up since VM (1) is now toast. Messing with
boot sectors isn't particularly safe :-).

How the boot configuration came to be different is beyond me, but
anyway... I now have a working Xen on VMware (the full RedHat) so I am
happy.

Cheers

-- Jan


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