Arch Linux

mellofone

Member

Registered: 2009-03-13

Posts: 37

Arch as Xenserver guest OS

I've been playing around with Citrix's Xenserver as a possible option to virtualize some machines. I see that they have pre-rolled debian, centos, and some RHEL templates to get things working, but I would prefer Arch. I've been able to install Arch as a VM without any ussues, but have been struggling getting the XenServer tools running on the guest (which I was told are essential for performance).

I've tried installing a Xen kernel from AUR (http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=16087), along with the xe-guest-utilities (http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=28591). Everything seems to work until I manually change the VM into PV mode. I changed everything to /dev/xvda1 and 2 (swap and /), and changed grub as well. At boot of the arch VM I get:

Root device '/dev/xvda2' doesn't exist. Attempting to create it. Unable to determine major/minor number of root device '/dev/xvda2'. You are being dropped to a recovery shell.

And that's where it stops. I am not so much worried about the tools, but getting the Xen-ified kernel booting and having it recognized as a PV VM. I was told a lot of Arch servers here are run under Xen, so that the general list may be my best bet for any help.

JGC

Developer

Registered: 2003-12-03

Posts: 1,664

Re: Arch as Xenserver guest OS

If your host is running 64bit you don't need a special Xen kernel, as the stock kernel26 package has paravirtualization support for Xen by default.

mellofone

Member

Registered: 2009-03-13

Posts: 37

Re: Arch as Xenserver guest OS

I did not know that, I shall try that next. Is there still a restriction where the FS needs to be ext3, as no ext4 is supported to boot?

mellofone

Member

Registered: 2009-03-13

Posts: 37

Re: Arch as Xenserver guest OS

Installed arch, rebooted normally, everything is fine. Changed grub's menu.lst with all the xvda* stuff, also changed /etc/fstab with the same. Shutdown and manually changed to PV mode with xe commands. Started VM and got the following error:

3/8/2010 10:58:54 AM Error: Starting VM 'arch' - Internal error: Failure("Error from xenguesthelper: caught exception: Failure(\\\"Subprocess failure: Failure(\\\\\\\"xc_dom_linux_build: [2] xc_dom_find_loader: no loader found\\\\\\\\n\\\\\\\")\\\")")

All google work points to a non-Xen aware kernel...

Last edited by mellofone (2010-03-08 16:18:57)

steve___

Member

Registered: 2008-02-24

Posts: 452

Re: Arch as Xenserver guest OS

Why would you double post this?

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=92350

mellofone

Member

Registered: 2009-03-13

Posts: 37

Re: Arch as Xenserver guest OS

I followed Daenyth's suggestion since he believed a lot of the arch servers are run on Xen. It doesn't look like I can close it or delete it...

mellofone

Member

Registered: 2009-03-13

Posts: 37

Re: Arch as Xenserver guest OS

At any rate, it seems to work perfectly if I use the kernel26-lts kernel, but not the standard kernel26. I guess that's a start...