Libguestfs - Feb 2011 - question from 'edwin' on #libguestfs

This was a question asked last week on the IRC channel.  I was on
holiday and no one else was around at that time of the day to answer
it ...

< edwin> [Wed 19:27] hi
< edwin> [Wed 19:28] libguestfs-test-tool  says "sh: mkisofs: not
found" on Debian, it is supposedly replaced by
               genisoimage. How do I proceed about gathering debug info on why
guestfs doesn't work?

< edwin> [Wed 19:29] should I create a symlink named mkisofs to
genisoimage?

This is a problem with the Debian package.  I've noted it and will
try to fix it next week.

< edwin> [Wed 19:31] another problem is that the guest can't find
cdrom.ko, but I do a drivers/cdrom/cdrom.ko module on the
               host
< edwin> [Wed 19:49] looks like the initrd that is built doesn't
contain cdrom.ko...
< edwin> [Wed 20:04] febootstrap's helper/ext2initrd.c lacks cdrom.ko

Seems to be a bug in febootstrap, also noted, will try to fix.

< edwin> [Wed 20:14] ok now I lack the ext2 module in my custom kernel
< edwin> [Wed 20:26] hmm now I have ext2.ko, but it still says
febootstrap: no ext2 root device found
< edwin> [Wed 20:26] what other feature am I missing in the kernel? and
can I tell febootstrap to use a different kernel
               than the one I booted? (like a distro kernel, not my custom one)

We're not currently very smart about how we choose the kernel to use.
febootstrap tries a naive algorithm to get the "newest" (ie. latest
version) non-Xen kernel, and this has caused problems for other
people, and also for people with custom kernels.

This is something that needs to be fixed in the medium term,
eg. allowing people to choose which kernel to boot from, and/or being
smarter about how to choose the kernel on other (ie. non-Fedora)
distros.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
virt-df lists disk usage of guests without needing to install any
software inside the virtual machine.  Supports Linux and Windows.
http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-df/