help with dom u

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server SLES Virtualization
1

Sles 11 sp 2 xen running a sles 11 sp 2 guest. para-virtualized guest. The guest is slow to start but functioning. However, I attempt to login to the gui to use the desktop and that process never finishes. Even after hours of waiting, I don’t get to the desktop. I only have the greyed out splash screen with the whirling indicator whirling around. So, I attempt to access the server using ssh and I am able to enter a user name and a password but I never do get to a server prompt where I can work on the server.

I am not the most experienced linux admin but do have a several years of experience. I need some fairly detail instructions on how to get this dom u so I can determine what is causing these problems. I would appreciate any help at all. Thank you.

2

[QUOTE=jmcg;23270]Sles 11 sp 2 xen running a sles 11 sp 2 guest. para-virtualized guest. The guest is slow to start but functioning. However, I attempt to login to the gui to use the desktop and that process never finishes. Even after hours of waiting, I don’t get to the desktop. I only have the greyed out splash screen with the whirling indicator whirling around. So, I attempt to access the server using ssh and I am able to enter a user name and a password but I never do get to a server prompt where I can work on the server.

I am not the most experienced linux admin but do have a several years of experience. I need some fairly detail instructions on how to get this dom u so I can determine what is causing these problems. I would appreciate any help at all. Thank you.[/QUOTE]

Hi,

With what you describe I’m wondering what type of hardware you are using to run the Xen host on? In first instance it sounds like access to the the storage layer is dead slow for the domU.

A little more info on the Xen host, hardware specs (type/model, CPU-RAM, etc) and what’s running on the host would be good.

also good to know: Is this SLES 11 sp2 guest the only guest you are running on there? And how is the storage configured for the SLES domU’s storage?

Cheers,
Willem.

3

The xen host is a HP ml 350 G4 with 2 quad core 2.x Ghz processes with 24 Gb of memory. Currently there are only two guest running on the host, this one and another sles 11 srvr which is a groupwise server that has one PO and only 4 active accounts - its being phased out. There is also a another sles srvr and a windows srvr but neither of these are are running. This server is 6 years old and I am in the process of taking it off line, but this one server is critical to our school district - it holds students’ directories.

The OS of the dom u is file based on a RAID 1. The NSS volumes (yes this is an OES server), where the students’ directories are is on a RAID 5. I should also note that this dom u is running my sep-sesam file backup.

I hope that helps and I hope you can help me.

4

jmcg wrote:
[color=blue]

Sles 11 sp 2 xen running a sles 11 sp 2 guest. para-virtualized
guest.[/color]

I assume this is the OES11 DomU?
[color=blue]

The guest is slow to start but functioning. However, I
attempt to login to the gui to use the desktop and that process never
finishes. Even after hours of waiting, I don’t get to the desktop.[/color]

This is a DomU so how are you logging in? Is it from the Dom0 using the
Virtual Machine Manager? Are you trying to access the DomU using VNC?
[color=blue]

I only have the greyed out splash screen with the whirling indicator
whirling around. So, I attempt to access the server using ssh and I
am able to enter a user name and a password but I never do get to a
server prompt where I can work on the server.

I am not the most experienced linux admin but do have a several years
of experience. I need some fairly detail instructions on how to get
this dom u so I can determine what is causing these problems. I would
appreciate any help at all. Thank you.[/color]

At this point there is little information to work with. Since this
server contains student directories, is it possible this issue is
related to insufficient free disk space?

When did you first notice you couldn’t login? What changes have been
made to the system? Can you access /var/log/messages to see if there is
anything there that might identify the problem?

If you are unable to log into this DomU to troubleshoot, you could shut
down the DomU and mount the DomU’s filesystem on your Dom0 so you could
look at it. There are TIDS explaining how to do this and we are also
available if you require our help.

How is storage presented to the DomU: is it file-backed or are you
using block devices? How are the devices partitioned?

You may gain additional insight from your Dom0. Can you run “xm top”?
It provides useful statistics that may shed some light on the problem.

Let us know what you learn.

–
Kevin Boyle - Knowledge Partner
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5

Hi jmcg,

[QUOTE=jmcg;23270]Sles 11 sp 2 xen running a sles 11 sp 2 guest. para-virtualized guest. The guest is slow to start but functioning. However, I attempt to login to the gui to use the desktop and that process never finishes. Even after hours of waiting, I don’t get to the desktop. I only have the greyed out splash screen with the whirling indicator whirling around. So, I attempt to access the server using ssh and I am able to enter a user name and a password but I never do get to a server prompt where I can work on the server.

I am not the most experienced linux admin but do have a several years of experience. I need some fairly detail instructions on how to get this dom u so I can determine what is causing these problems. I would appreciate any help at all. Thank you.[/QUOTE]

when you look at the DomU’s console output, is there anything you see in the syslog messages displayed on (DomU’s) tty10?

How was the DomU created/installed? If it’s that slow, it would have been a night mare to do… I rather hope you have some connectivity issue, where some name/id resolution takes close to forever to time out.

If you cannot get to tty10 at all then stop the VM, mount the DomU’s disk image manually in Dom0 and have a look at the log files stored there…

Regards,
Jens