Arch Linux

ac1115

Member

Registered: 2011-02-19

Posts: 3

Arch doesn't boot as DomU on Xen system

Hello,

I'm trying to set up Arch as a domu guest (fully virtualized) on my opensolaris Xen box.  It seems one of the recent kernels prevents booting.

If I use the "Core Image" install iso to install Arch, it works fine. (Kernel 2.6.33), but if I then upgrade using  pacman to 2.6.37, it can't find my root drive
"Waiting 10 seconds for device /dev/sda1 ..."
it doesn't find it then, then drops me down to recovery shell. 

If I use the "netinstall image" It installs right, but it fails on first boot, with the same issue.

So this leads me to believe something has changed from the 2.6.33 -> 2.6.37 kernals that prevents boot.

Any ideas?

Mr.Elendig

#archlinux@freenode channel op

From: The intertubes

Registered: 2004-11-07

Posts: 4,092

Re: Arch doesn't boot as DomU on Xen system

My guess would be that your / really is /dev/xvda and not /dev/sda1 (or similar)
(using uuid/label is a nice way to avoid problems like this btw)

Alternativly that the mkinitcpio for some reason didn't include the correct driver for the block device.

Last edited by Mr.Elendig (2011-02-20 02:25:50)

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ac1115

Member

Registered: 2011-02-19

Posts: 3

Re: Arch doesn't boot as DomU on Xen system

I'm running the VM using full visualization, so the hard drives are displayed to the VM as emulated sata drives.  Only paravirtualized VMs use the xvda naming.

Also, I tried using uuid/labels, same problem.

ac1115

Member

Registered: 2011-02-19

Posts: 3

Re: Arch doesn't boot as DomU on Xen system

well I figured it out.  Sadly I could not find a solution to the issue, but I found a way to side step it.   I figured I might as well put a quick writeup on what I did, for all 5 of you out there that still use opensolaris and xen

Basically, install the "Core Image" iso which includes the older 2.6.33.4 kernel then install the kernel26-xen package from AUR on top of that.  Then halt the system and create a new xen VM in Dom0 that'll boot the existing VM disk as a paravirtualized VM.  System should work fine then.

I used the instructions in the wiki, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xe … PV_mode.29    And make sure to use disk labels when installing the "Core Image" iso in the beginning, you'll save time later on when switching over to para mode.  (remember sda1 will change to xvda1, so unless you use disk labels you'll need to go through config files and change all references!)

BTW, I used the 05.2010 release, kernel: 2.6.33.4 as my initially installed system.  Using anything newer might fail at first boot.

avanc

Member

Registered: 2010-12-21

Posts: 12

Re: Arch doesn't boot as DomU on Xen system

I got the same problem after updating the kernel. Does someone know what changed in the newest kernel (configuration)?
Is xen-blkfront not included anymore?

So, your solution is to use the kernel26-xen from aur instead of the standard kernel?