Re: [Xen-users] CentOS 4.5 on SLES10SP1 no disk

[Scott Serr <serrs@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
> Henning Sprang wrote:
> > Scott Serr wrote:
> >  
> > > I have a server running SLES10SP1 with Xen enabled.  I am able to fire
> > > off SLED10 installs inside Xen VMs just fine.
> > >
> > > I need to run (3) CentOS 4.5 VMs on it.
> > >
> > > CentOS kernel is not creating block devices for hd or iso image. any 
> > > ideas?
> > > It doesn't seem to care if there is this line in my config file:
> > >
> > > disk = [ 'file:/export/home/CentOS-4.5-x86_64-binDVD.iso,hdc,r' ]
> > >     
> > Hmm, you're trying to boot an ISO in paravirtual mode?
> >
> > AFAIK this isn't so easy as one would assume when having used other
> > virtualization technologies before.
> >
> > If at all, you can _maybe_ expect it work halfways nice with HVM.
> >
> > But you might rather try bootstrapping centos with yum, as described
> > here:
> > http://faiwiki.informatik.uni-koeln.de/index.php/FAI_multi-distribution#bootstrapping_the_base_images__for_other_distributions 
> >
> > (this is tested on Debian, it might or might not work on SuSE, I heard
> > various reports on success and failure on other distributions).
> >
> >   
> My experience with this approach is that yum hangs doing this on 
> CentOS 4 and CentOS 5, on the "touch" commands run by various "%post" 
> RPM function. You may need to set a lockfile with your build script, 
> and set a little monitor widget to slap such touch processes in the 
> head. Once you have a base minimum OS to your flavor, set it aside in 
> a tarball for starting new configurations.
> Or, if you're a complete weasel, you use the "mock" tool from Fedora 
> Core to build full chroot cages, run "mock init", and do your upgrades 
> inside the mock-built chroot.
> > Or, you might search the web - I used to know where I found this, but
> > have it not available now - there is a howto on how to start anaconda
> > inside a domU to make the installation, that should work with SuSE, too.
> >
> > Take care to give enough(I don't know a number, a good guess is 256 if
> > on doubt) memory to the VM, otherwise Anaconda will likely hang in an
> > undefined state without any error message.
> >   
> For CentOS 5, I find 512 works well. CentOS 4 was quite happy with 
> 256: I haven't looked at the exact difference.
I'm giving the domU 512MB.  Thank you both for your help.  And I am just 
doing PV, forgot to say that.
What is weird though is when the kernel boots I never see anything about 
a hard drive either, not just the CD...
disk = [ 'file:/xen/dom1/disk0,hda,w' 'file:/xen/cd/centos4.iso,hdc,r' ]

I've created the disk0 with dd.  I'd expect the kernel to mention that 
the disk has no partitions on hda, as I've seen before.  I also tried 
the front end device name of xvda.
This page:
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Xen/InstallingCentOSDomU
Has a full install from the network.

SuSE domU on SuSE dom0 is so easy...  I with I could get CentOS working. 

Thanks for any additional help or hints.
-Scott



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