Xen users - Jul 2007 - Debian Etch 4.0 domU will not boot

Hi all.  In CentOS 5 with kernel 2.6.18-8.1.4.el5xen and a file-backed
disk, I am unable to successfully boot Debian Etch.  It basically
stops doing anything after loading cron, but right before it would
normally spawn a login process.  Note that the same domU file was
copied from a working Debian system which does not exhibit this issue.
 Config looks like this:

kernel = "/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.1.4.el5xen"
ramdisk = "/boot/initrd-xencustom.img"
memory = 192
name = "roffle"
disk = [''file:/home/roffle.img,sda1,w'']
root = "/dev/sda1 ro"
extra = "4"

Note the custom initrd because using the included initrd does not seem
to furnish a scsi controller, thus I get "mount: could not find
filesystem ''/dev/root''" if I try booting up on the stock
initrd.
Another thing I notice is that it seems to boot up much slower than on
the Debian system, which is odd because the Debian system is only a
P4.  I also tried a ''yum update'' to bring me up to kernel
2.6.18-8.1.6.el5xen - no luck with this kernel either, both with the
included initrd (which still does not work like the previous kernel
version), or by making my own initrd.  Note that the same problem
occurs in a Debian Sarge image as well.  Needless to say, i''ve tried
many many iterations and config scenarios trying to get this to work.
In both cases (Sarge and Etch), I have created the image using the
normal ''dd ; mkfs.ext3 ; debootstrap'' method.  Most recently I
also
noticed there were things about SELinux in the domU kernel output on
the CentOS system, so I disabled it by adding ''selinux=0'' to
the
kernel parameters, still no change.

For reference, the command I''m using to create the initrd is
''mkinitrd
-f --with=ext3 --preload=ext3 --with=xennet --preload=xenblk
/boot/initrd-xencustom.img (kernelversion)''.  Also for reference, the
hardware config on this box is Core2Duo 2.13, Western Digital 120GB
IDE drive and 2GB DDR SDRAM on an Asus P5GL-MX.

Am I missing something?  Full kernel/boot output from the CentOS domU
(with selinux=0)  below.

Regards,

Andrew Wang


Started domain roffle
Linux version 2.6.18-8.1.6.el5xen (mockbuild@builder4.centos.org) (gcc
version 4.1.1 20070105 (Red Hat 4.1.1-52)) #1 SMP Thu Jun 14 20:11:42
EDT 2007
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
 Xen: 0000000000000000 - 000000000c800000 (usable)
0MB HIGHMEM available.
200MB LOWMEM available.
Using x86 segment limits to approximate NX protection
ACPI in unprivileged domain disabled
Built 1 zonelists.  Total pages: 51200
Kernel command line:  root=/dev/sda1 ro selinux=0 4
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Initializing CPU#0
CPU 0 irqstacks, hard=c071b000 soft=c06fb000
PID hash table entries: 1024 (order: 10, 4096 bytes)
Xen reported: 2127.998 MHz processor.
Console: colour dummy device 80x25
Dentry cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Software IO TLB disabled
vmalloc area: cd000000-f4ffe000, maxmem 2d7fe000
Memory: 186940k/204800k available (2017k kernel code, 9348k reserved,
824k data, 172k init, 0k highmem)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.
Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 5322.08 BogoMIPS (lpj=10644178)
Security Framework v1.0.0 initialized
SELinux:  Disabled at boot.
Capability LSM initialized
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
CPU: L1 I cache: 32K, L1 D cache: 32K
CPU: L2 cache: 2048K
Checking ''hlt'' instruction... OK.
SMP alternatives: switching to UP code
Freeing SMP alternatives: 16k freed
Brought up 1 CPUs
checking if image is initramfs... it is
Freeing initrd memory: 3104k freed
Grant table initialized
NET: Registered protocol family 16
ACPI Exception (utmutex-0262): AE_BAD_PARAMETER, Thread C06CAAA0 could
not acquire Mutex [2] [20060707]
Brought up 1 CPUs
PCI: setting up Xen PCI frontend stub
ACPI: Interpreter disabled.
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
pnp: PnP ACPI: disabled
xen_mem: Initialising balloon driver.
usbcore: registered new driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new driver hub
PCI: System does not support PCI
PCI: System does not support PCI
NetLabel: Initializing
NetLabel:  domain hash size = 128
NetLabel:  protocols = UNLABELED CIPSOv4
NetLabel:  unlabeled traffic allowed by default
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP route cache hash table entries: 2048 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)
TCP established hash table entries: 8192 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 8192 bind 4096)
TCP reno registered
IA-32 Microcode Update Driver: v1.14-xen <tigran@veritas.com>
audit: initializing netlink socket (disabled)
audit(1183722485.176:1): initialized
VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1
Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
Initializing Cryptographic API
ksign: Installing public key data
Loading keyring
- Added public key C495857A5E1977A2
- User ID: CentOS (Kernel Module GPG key)
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler anticipatory registered
io scheduler deadline registered
io scheduler cfq registered (default)
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
rtc: IRQ 8 is not free.
Non-volatile memory driver v1.2
Linux agpgart interface v0.101 (c) Dave Jones
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 16384K size 4096 blocksize
Xen virtual console successfully installed as xvc0
Linux version 2.6.18-8.1.6.el5xen (mockbuild@builder4.centos.org) (gcc
version 4.1.1 20070105 (Red Hat 4.1.1-52)) #1 SMP Thu Jun 14 20:11:42
EDT 2007
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
 Xen: 0000000000000000 - 000000000c800000 (usable)
0MB HIGHMEM available.
200MB LOWMEM available.
Using x86 segment limits to approximate NX protection
ACPI in unprivileged domain disabled
Built 1 zonelists.  Total pages: 51200
Kernel command line:  root=/dev/sda1 ro selinux=0 4
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Initializing CPU#0
CPU 0 irqstacks, hard=c071b000 soft=c06fb000
PID hash table entries: 1024 (order: 10, 4096 bytes)
Xen reported: 2127.998 MHz processor.
Console: colour dummy device 80x25
Dentry cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Software IO TLB disabled
vmalloc area: cd000000-f4ffe000, maxmem 2d7fe000
Memory: 186940k/204800k available (2017k kernel code, 9348k reserved,
824k data, 172k init, 0k highmem)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.
Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 5322.08 BogoMIPS (lpj=10644178)
Security Framework v1.0.0 initialized
SELinux:  Disabled at boot.
Capability LSM initialized
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
CPU: L1 I cache: 32K, L1 D cache: 32K
CPU: L2 cache: 2048K
Checking ''hlt'' instruction... OK.
SMP alternatives: switching to UP code
Freeing SMP alternatives: 16k freed
Brought up 1 CPUs
checking if image is initramfs... it is
Freeing initrd memory: 3104k freed
Grant table initialized
NET: Registered protocol family 16
ACPI Exception (utmutex-0262): AE_BAD_PARAMETER, Thread C06CAAA0 could
not acquire Mutex [2] [20060707]
Brought up 1 CPUs
PCI: setting up Xen PCI frontend stub
ACPI: Interpreter disabled.
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
pnp: PnP ACPI: disabled
xen_mem: Initialising balloon driver.
usbcore: registered new driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new driver hub
PCI: System does not support PCI
PCI: System does not support PCI
NetLabel: Initializing
NetLabel:  domain hash size = 128
NetLabel:  protocols = UNLABELED CIPSOv4
NetLabel:  unlabeled traffic allowed by default
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP route cache hash table entries: 2048 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)
TCP established hash table entries: 8192 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 8192 bind 4096)
TCP reno registered
IA-32 Microcode Update Driver: v1.14-xen <tigran@veritas.com>
audit: initializing netlink socket (disabled)
audit(1183722485.176:1): initialized
VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1
Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
Initializing Cryptographic API
ksign: Installing public key data
Loading keyring
- Added public key C495857A5E1977A2
- User ID: CentOS (Kernel Module GPG key)
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler anticipatory registered
io scheduler deadline registered
io scheduler cfq registered (default)
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
rtc: IRQ 8 is not free.
Non-volatile memory driver v1.2
Linux agpgart interface v0.101 (c) Dave Jones
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 16384K size 4096 blocksize
Xen virtual console successfully installed as xvc0
Event-channel device installed.
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 50MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide
usbcore: registered new driver hiddev
usbcore: registered new driver usbhid
drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.6:USB HID core driver
PNP: No PS/2 controller found. Probing ports directly.
i8042.c: No controller found.
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
md: md driver 0.90.3 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: bitmap version 4.39
TCP bic registered
Initializing IPsec netlink socket
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 17
Using IPI No-Shortcut mode
XENBUS: Device with no driver: device/vbd/2049
Freeing unused kernel memory: 172k freed
Write protecting the kernel read-only data: 355k
Red Hat nash version 5.1.19.6 starting
Mounting proc filesystem
Mounting sysfs filesystem
Creating /dev
Creating initial device nodes
Setting up hotplug.
Creating block device nodes.
Loading jbd.ko module
Loading ext3.ko module
Loading xenblk.ko module
Registering block device major 8
Loading uhci-hcd.ko module
USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v3.0
Loading ohci-hcd.ko module
Loading ehci-hcd.ko module
Loading xennet.ko module
netfront: Initialising virtual ethernet driver.
Creating root device.
Mounting root filesystem.
EXT3-fs: INFO: recovery required on readonly filesystem.
EXT3-fs: write access will be enabled during recovery.
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: recovery complete.
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Setting up other filesystems.
Setting up new root fs
no fstab.sys, mounting internal defaults
Switching to new root and running init.
unmounting old /dev
unmounting old /proc
unmounting old /sys
INIT: version 2.86 booting
Activating swap...done.
Checking root file system...fsck 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
/dev/sda1: clean, 12601/128000 files, 81350/256000 blocks
done.
EXT3 FS on sda1, internal journal
Setting the system clock..
Cleaning up ifupdown....
Loading kernel modules...done.
Loading device-mapper supportdevice-mapper: ioctl: 4.11.0-ioctl
(2006-09-14) initialised: dm-devel@redhat.com
.
Checking file systems...fsck 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
done.
Setting kernel variables...done.
Mounting local filesystems...done.
Activating swapfile swap...done.
Setting up networking....
Configuring network interfaces...done.
INIT: Entering runlevel: 4
Starting system log daemon: syslogd.
Starting kernel log daemon: klogd.
* Not starting internet superserver: no services enabled.
Starting periodic command scheduler: crond.

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One other thing I can add, which will hopefully shed quite a bit of
light on what''s happening.  Once I see "INIT: version 2.86
booting", a
quick flip over to ''xm top'' in another console reveals that
the domU
starts using 100% of its available CPU at that point, and does not
stop from henceforth until it''s destroyed.

Regards,

Andrew Wang

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I hate to keep bumping this topic, but it''s worth pointing out that
Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn exhibits the same behavior.  As soon as init
starts, CPU utilization goes to 100%.  It gets all the way through the
boot process but will not spawn a login prompt.

-A

On 7/6/07, Andrew W. <andrewinet@gmail.com> wrote:
> One other thing I can add, which will hopefully shed quite a bit of
> light on what''s happening.  Once I see "INIT: version 2.86
booting", a
> quick flip over to ''xm top'' in another console reveals
that the domU
> starts using 100% of its available CPU at that point, and does not
> stop from henceforth until it''s destroyed.
>
> Regards,
>
> Andrew Wang
>
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Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users

Andrew W. wrote:
> Hi all.  In CentOS 5 with kernel 2.6.18-8.1.4.el5xen and a file-backed
> disk, I am unable to successfully boot Debian Etch. 
Yes, the fedora/redhat Kernel is patched in a way that only Fedora
guests work well with it.

Get a debian xen Kernel (fetch it from your guest, which you probably
bootstrapped with debootstrap), and initrd, and try to start the domain
with it.

I played ariund with this a lot,  but using the Debian Kernel(or, if you
rather like that, one from the xensource binary xen packages) was the
only thing that worked nicely and reliably.

Similar for running Suse on Fedora/Redhat. I got Suse working with a lot
of tweaking, but using the guest''s native Xen Kernel is a match easier
and better solution.

Henning

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Henning,

Thank you for the reply.  I discovered this on my own, one day after
posting to the list.  The last time I did a Xen deployment, it was on
an FC5 box, back when there were separate Dom0 and DomU kernels.  In
fact, I had much grief back then because I was running a kernel on the
DomU that did not match the Dom0 and it took me a long time to
discover that was the problem.  Now it seems that in this case,
running a proper DomU kernel that *does not* match the Dom0 is
*required*.  Any idea when this became normal, what architectural
changes necessitated it, and most importantly, why it doesn''t seem to
be documented but is rather a foregone conclusion these days?

Regards,

Andrew Wang


On 7/9/07, Henning Sprang <henning_sprang@gmx.de>
wrote:
> Andrew W. wrote:
> > Hi all.  In CentOS 5 with kernel 2.6.18-8.1.4.el5xen and a file-backed
> > disk, I am unable to successfully boot Debian Etch.
>
> Yes, the fedora/redhat Kernel is patched in a way that only Fedora
> guests work well with it.
>
> Get a debian xen Kernel (fetch it from your guest, which you probably
> bootstrapped with debootstrap), and initrd, and try to start the domain
> with it.
>
> I played ariund with this a lot,  but using the Debian Kernel(or, if you
> rather like that, one from the xensource binary xen packages) was the
> only thing that worked nicely and reliably.
>
> Similar for running Suse on Fedora/Redhat. I got Suse working with a lot
> of tweaking, but using the guest''s native Xen Kernel is a match
easier
> and better solution.
>
> Henning
>
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