Issues booting off virtual SCSI drives in kvm-69

Issues booting off virtual SCSI drives in kvm-69

[Freddie Cash]

Am I missing something simple, or can you only boot off virtual IDE 
drives?

I'm running kvm-69 (from the sid repos) on 64-bit Debian Lenny, using the 
kvm modules that are part of the kernel 2.6.25 package on Debian.

I can create virtual SCSI drives, boot off a virtual CD-ROM, and install 
Debian onto the vSCSI drives.  However, I cannot boot off the virtual 
SCSI drives following the install.

The VM is being run as:
/usr/bin/kvm -name webmail -daemonize -localtime -usb -usbdevice 
tablet -smp 1 -m 2048 -vnc :05 -pidfile /var/run/kvm/webmail.pid -net 
nic,macaddr=00:16:3e:00:00:05,model=rtl8139 -net tap,ifname=tap05 -boot 
c -drive 
index=1,media=disk,if=scsi,file=/dev/mapper/vol0-webmail--storage -drive 
index=0,media=disk,if=scsi,file=/dev/mapper/vol0-webmail

And the error message on the virtual console is:
Booting from Hard Disk...
Boot from Hard Disk failed: could not read the boot disk
FATAL: No bootable device

The virtual SCSI drives are configured as:
  sda1  100 MB  /boot (bootable flag set)
  sda2    5 GB  /
  sda5   50 GB  /usr
  sda6   50 GB  /var
  sdb1  100 GB  /home

GRUB is installed into the MBR of the first SCSI drive (sda).

I've tried reversing the two -drive options on the commandline, as well as 
reversing the index numbers on the commandline.

"info block" in the QEmu monitor shows the drives as being attached, and 
in the correct order.

What, if anything, am I missing?  Or is this just not possible?

-- 
Freddie Cash
fjwcash@gmail.com

Re: Issues booting off virtual SCSI drives in kvm-69

[Javier Guerra]

On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 4:10 PM, Freddie Cash <fjwcash@gmail.com> wrote:
> Am I missing something simple, or can you only boot off virtual IDE
> drives?

add 'boot=on' to the drive specification:

/usr/bin/kvm -name webmail -daemonize -localtime -usb -usbdevice
tablet -smp 1 -m 2048 -vnc :05 -pidfile /var/run/kvm/webmail.pid -net
nic,macaddr=00:16:3e:00:00:05,model=rtl8139 -net tap,ifname=tap05
-boot c -drive index=1,media=disk,if=scsi,file=/dev/mapper/vol0-webmail--storage
-drive index=0,media=disk,if=scsi,file=/dev/mapper/vol0-webmail,boot=on


that got me for a long time too.

-- 
Javier

Re: Issues booting off virtual SCSI drives in kvm-69

[Freddie Cash]

On May 30, 2008 02:50 pm you wrote:
> On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 4:10 PM, Freddie Cash <fjwcash@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Am I missing something simple, or can you only boot off virtual IDE
> > drives?
>
> add 'boot=on' to the drive specification:
>
> /usr/bin/kvm -name webmail -daemonize -localtime -usb -usbdevice
> tablet -smp 1 -m 2048 -vnc :05 -pidfile /var/run/kvm/webmail.pid -net
> nic,macaddr=00:16:3e:00:00:05,model=rtl8139 -net tap,ifname=tap05
> -boot c -drive
> index=1,media=disk,if=scsi,file=/dev/mapper/vol0-webmail--storage
> -drive index=0,media=disk,if=scsi,file=/dev/mapper/vol0-webmail,boot=on
>
> that got me for a long time too.

A few minutes after sending this, I found, buried deep down in my google 
results, this non-documented option.  :)  Spent a good hour reading 
through mailing list archives, forums posts, and various websites before 
finding this.

Anyone willing to update the man pages for qemu and/or kvm-qemu to 
document this option?  :D

-- 
Freddie Cash
fjwcash@gmail.com

[PATCH] qemu: document "boot" option for "drive" flag

[Carlo Marcelo Arenas Belon]

complement 982e9b725e32f58158b6b9968f04e3377f52e63 with some basic
documentation, extracted from the commit message.

Signed-off-by: Carlo Marcelo Arenas Belon <carenas@sajinet.com.pe>
---
 qemu/qemu-doc.texi |    8 ++++++++
 1 files changed, 8 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

diff --git a/qemu/qemu-doc.texi b/qemu/qemu-doc.texi
index 7a24676..fcb220f 100644
--- a/qemu/qemu-doc.texi
+++ b/qemu/qemu-doc.texi
@@ -266,6 +266,8 @@ These options have the same definition as they have in @option{-hdachs}.
 Specify which disk @var{format} will be used rather than detecting
 the format.  Can be used to specifiy format=raw to avoid interpreting
 an untrusted format header.
+@item boot=@var{boot}
+@var{boot} if "on" allows to enable extboot for a given drive so it can be used as a boot drive.
 @end table
 
 Instead of @option{-cdrom} you can use:
@@ -297,6 +299,12 @@ You can connect a SCSI disk with unit ID 6 on the bus #0:
 qemu -drive file=file,if=scsi,bus=0,unit=6
 @end example
 
+To boot from a SCSI disk, one would use:
+
+@example
+qemu -drive file=file,if=scsi,boot=on
+@end example
+
 Instead of @option{-fda}, @option{-fdb}, you can use:
 @example
 qemu -drive file=file,index=0,if=floppy
-- 
1.5.3.7

Re: [PATCH] qemu: document "boot" option for "drive" flag

[Avi Kivity]

Carlo Marcelo Arenas Belon wrote:
> complement 982e9b725e32f58158b6b9968f04e3377f52e63 with some basic
> documentation, extracted from the commit message.
>
>   

Applied, thanks.

-- 
Do not meddle in the internals of kernels, for they are subtle and quick to panic.