Fedora xen - Dec 2006 - older rhel/centos/FC guests on fc6 host and non working console solved

I spend some time figuring out why my old centos/rhel/fc images I converted
for xen didnt have a proper serial console. It turns out they have either
a missing or older version of /dev/xvc0.

The fix is to make sure the new device eixsts. either in the initrd and/or
some other place. Since these older versions of the OS are likely booting
with a newer kernel (from your FC6 host), you have a non working udev, so
you need to make sure the device exists manually:

mknod /dev/xvc0 c 250 187

Be aware that there are many wrong/old google hits on the majore/minors
of this.

I hope this helps others not waste as much time as me :)

Paul

Paul Wouters <paul@xelerance.com> writes:
> I spend some time figuring out why my old centos/rhel/fc images I converted
> for xen didnt have a proper serial console. It turns out they have either
> a missing or older version of /dev/xvc0.
>
> The fix is to make sure the new device eixsts. either in the initrd and/or
> some other place. Since these older versions of the OS are likely booting
> with a newer kernel (from your FC6 host), you have a non working udev, so
> you need to make sure the device exists manually:
>
> mknod /dev/xvc0 c 250 187
This major number is in the range for local/experimental use.  LANANA
recently approved 204 191 for xvc, and upstream switched to it.  Watch
out for this when you update your kernel in the future.

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