I run SLES 11 SP3 with several xen-based virtual machines (SLES11, Win and opensuse 13). I want to install new Opensuse Leap virtual host. Installation went OK, but VM refused to start telling me that the kernel was not found. I tried it again, checking if there was any issue during the installation, but couldn’t see any.
Peter
Hi Peter,
what root fs are you using in your VM and have you set up a separate /boot partition? And am I assuming correctly that you’re running the guest in paravirtualized mode?
How’s the boot loader setup in the Xen configuration of this guest?
Regards,
Jens
[QUOTE=jmozdzen;32062]Hi Peter,
what root fs are you using in your VM and have you set up a separate /boot partition? And am I assuming correctly that you’re running the guest in paravirtualized mode?
How’s the boot loader setup in the Xen configuration of this guest?
Regards,
Jens[/QUOTE]
Hi Jens,
I kept all the proposed settings untouched, which means BtrFS for root partition, no separate /boot partition. And yes you are correct, I run it in paravirtualized mode.
During the installation the Boot options of VM says Kernel path: /tmp/kernel.something, Initrd path: /tmp/install-initrd.something and Kernel argumets: install=hd:/dev/xvdb - is this what you asked for?
After the installation VM restarts, then says No kernel was found and the disk image (which was created during the installation) disappears completely as well as the VM itself.
Peter
Hi Peter,
we’ve had our share of problems booting DomUs with BtrFS for root. We decided to generally use Ext4, but there may be a work-around, depending on the patch level of your Dom0 installation.
[QUOTE=pfsas;32065]During the installation the Boot options of VM says Kernel path: /tmp/kernel.something, Initrd path: /tmp/install-initrd.something and Kernel argumets: install=hd:/dev/xvdb - is this what you asked for?
After the installation VM restarts, then says No kernel was found and the disk image (which was created during the installation) disappears completely as well as the VM itself.[/QUOTE]
No that wasn’t what I was after - it’s the configuration that’s set up after the install phase.
During DomU installation, the boot loader grabs the kernel and initrd from the installation media, copies it to Dom0’s /tmp and boots that - this is what you see and quoted above. Once the installation is “complete”, IOW the first restart of the DomU is scheduled, those temporary files are deleted and the configuration updated to boot from the DomU’s virtual disk.
If I got that right, we typically used the following boot loader config for BtrFS-based images (i.e. SLES12 or Leap, when configured all default):
[CODE]builder=“linux” # PVM
kernel=“/usr/lib/grub2/x86_64-xen/grub.xen” # BtrFS[/CODE]
please note that this is from a SLES11SP4 Dom0 (provided by grub2-x86_64-xen-2.00-0.57.1 in our case) - so please check first that this loader file is available on SP3…
If not and you cannot upgrade to SP4, install you VMs using Ext4 or at least put /boot on a separate, non-BtrFS partition.
Regards,
Jens
Hi Jens,
As just after the installation my virtual machine disappeared together with the disk, I couldn’t see the configuration, there was no file to read it from.
Nevertheless, the problem is now sold. First of all, I gave you bad version information. We are on SP4, not SP3. And it was not fully up-to-date. After latest update the installation went OK and virtual machine is running now. Anyway, thanks for your advice.
Peter
Hi Peter,
thank you for reporting back.
[SLES11SP4] After latest update the installation went OK and virtual machine is running now
yes that sounds reasonable - we had experienced that issue and worked with engineering to get it resolved 
Glad you got your environment back to operational state!
Regards,
Jens