Xen users - Nov 2007 - HVM install keeps crashing with Centos 5 virt-install

I am doing an HVM install on an HP DL380 system with what I believe is
Xen 3.0.3 using Centos 5. Things have worked fine
before, but now when I attempt a guest install it crashes. I have a CPU
with Intel-VT and it is turned on the bios. I am not sure why it is
crashing and the only thing I can attribute it to is a hardware problem.
Wierd thing is, I had a Debian VM running and then the install of
another VM crashed. I attached the xen-bugtool output.

What test can I do to see if it is a hardware problem. I can''t seem to
see anything in the logs for Xen.

brian
-- 
Brian Lavender
http://www.brie.com/brian/


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On Fri, Nov 02, 2007 at 05:18:48PM -0700, Brian Lavender
wrote:
> I am doing an HVM install on an HP DL380 system with what I believe is
> Xen 3.0.3 using Centos 5. Things have worked fine
> before, but now when I attempt a guest install it crashes. I have a CPU
> with Intel-VT and it is turned on the bios. I am not sure why it is
> crashing and the only thing I can attribute it to is a hardware problem.
> Wierd thing is, I had a Debian VM running and then the install of
> another VM crashed. I attached the xen-bugtool output.
> 
> What test can I do to see if it is a hardware problem. I can''t
seem to
> see anything in the logs for Xen.
I did find this in xen-dmesg

(XEN) (GUEST: 2) Booting from CD-Rom...
(XEN) Weird HVM iorequest state 9.
(XEN) domain_crash called from hvm.c:247
(XEN) Domain 2 (vcpu#0) crashed on cpu#0:


brian
-- 
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On Fri, Nov 02, 2007 at 05:25:05PM -0700, Brian Lavender
wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 02, 2007 at 05:18:48PM -0700, Brian Lavender wrote:
> > I am doing an HVM install on an HP DL380 system with what I believe is
> > Xen 3.0.3 using Centos 5. Things have worked fine
> > before, but now when I attempt a guest install it crashes. I have a
CPU
> > with Intel-VT and it is turned on the bios. I am not sure why it is
> > crashing and the only thing I can attribute it to is a hardware
problem.
> > Wierd thing is, I had a Debian VM running and then the install of
> > another VM crashed. I attached the xen-bugtool output.
> > 
> > What test can I do to see if it is a hardware problem. I
can''t seem to
> > see anything in the logs for Xen.
> 
> I did find this in xen-dmesg
> 
> (XEN) (GUEST: 2) Booting from CD-Rom...
> (XEN) Weird HVM iorequest state 9.
> (XEN) domain_crash called from hvm.c:247
> (XEN) Domain 2 (vcpu#0) crashed on cpu#0:
I am trying to install Redhat 6.2 as an HVM guest. Will this work? 

brian
-- 
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Brian Lavender wrote:
>
> I am trying to install Redhat 6.2 as an HVM guest. Will this work? 
>
>   
First, a question. Have you ever tried to install RH 6.2 on a modern
Intel CPU?
My guess is it wouldn''t work. CPU-wise, Xen will pretty much present
whatever CPU present at dom0 to domU. Meaning if it crashed on a real
machine, it would also crash on a HVM guest.

That being said, I believe the earliest RHEL version certified to run as
HVM guest is RHEL3, and the earliest RHEL version certified to run as PV
guest is 4.5.

Regards,

Fajar

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On 06/11/2007, Fajar A. Nugraha <fajar@telkom.net.id>
wrote:
>
> Brian Lavender wrote:
> >
> > I am trying to install Redhat 6.2 as an HVM guest. Will this work?
> >
> >
> First, a question. Have you ever tried to install RH 6.2 on a modern
> Intel CPU?
> My guess is it wouldn''t work. CPU-wise, Xen will pretty much
present
> whatever CPU present at dom0 to domU. Meaning if it crashed on a real
> machine, it would also crash on a HVM guest.
>
> That being said, I believe the earliest RHEL version certified to run as
> HVM guest is RHEL3, and the earliest RHEL version certified to run as PV
> guest is 4.5.

Really?

Good to know - i''ve just spend a few days trying (and eventually
succeeding)
to install RHEL 4.4 x64 as a PV guest on an Intel Xeon 3050.

Do you have a sample .cfg file to run an HVM RHEL 4 (on Debian Etch, Xen
3.0.3)?

Also - is there a way to run RHEL 4 i386 under Xen on an x86_64 host (and be
presented as a i386 machine to its processes)? One of the things I tried was
to start an HVM install but I just couldn''t make it go. The only way i
could
make it run was using Qemu.

Attempting to run a jailtime i386 image on an x86_64 machine created a weird
"Chimera" where the packages that came from jailtime''s image
ran fine but
any execution of "yum" insisted on bringing in i686 packages (even
after
tweaking yum''s config), so I couldn''t install any additional
packages on it.

Thanks,

--Amos


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Amos Shapira wrote:
> On 06/11/2007, *Fajar A. Nugraha* <fajar@telkom.net.id
> <mailto:fajar@telkom.net.id>> wrote:
>
>     Brian Lavender wrote:
>     >
>     > I am trying to install Redhat 6.2 as an HVM guest. Will this work?
>     >
>     >
>     First, a question. Have you ever tried to install RH 6.2 on a modern
>     Intel CPU?
>     My guess is it wouldn''t work. CPU-wise, Xen will pretty much
present
>     whatever CPU present at dom0 to domU. Meaning if it crashed on a real
>     machine, it would also crash on a HVM guest.
>
>     That being said, I believe the earliest RHEL version certified to
>     run as
>     HVM guest is RHEL3, and the earliest RHEL version certified to run
>     as PV
>     guest is 4.5.
>
>
> Really?
>
> Good to know - i''ve just spend a few days trying (and eventually
> succeeding) to install RHEL 4.4 x64 as a PV guest on an Intel Xeon 3050.
Just curious. You DO use RHEL4''s kernel-xenU package, and not
CentOS/RHEL 5''s kernel-xen for your domU, right? I believe kernel-xen
for RHEL4 is available starting from RHEL 4.5.
>
> Do you have a sample .cfg file to run an HVM RHEL 4 (on Debian Etch,
> Xen 3.0.3)?
>
No, sorry. Havent'' had the need to create one.
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-5-manual/Virtualization-en-US/task-virt-lab1.html
says the steps (an therefore config) is the same as installing RHEL5
> Also - is there a way to run RHEL 4 i386 under Xen on an x86_64 host
> (and be presented as a i386 machine to its processes)? One of the
> things I tried was to start an HVM install but I just couldn''t
make it
> go. The only way i could make it run was using Qemu.
>
That''s odd. It should work. I''ll try it out later.
On another note, if you use Xen 3.1, you should be able to use dom0
x86_64 and domU i386 kernel, PV guest. I believe this is a better
approach since PV guests gives better performance compared to HVM.
> Attempting to run a jailtime i386 image on an x86_64 machine created a
> weird "Chimera" where the packages that came from
jailtime''s image ran
> fine but any execution of "yum" insisted on bringing in i686
packages
Why would i686 be a problem?

Regards,

Fajar

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On 06/11/2007, Fajar A. Nugraha <fajar@telkom.net.id>
wrote:
>
> Amos Shapira wrote:
> > Good to know - i''ve just spend a few days trying (and
eventually
> > succeeding) to install RHEL 4.4 x64 as a PV guest on an Intel Xeon
3050.
> Just curious. You DO use RHEL4''s kernel-xenU package, and not
> CentOS/RHEL 5''s kernel-xen for your domU, right? I believe
kernel-xen
> for RHEL4 is available starting from RHEL 4.5.

I use Debian Etch for Dom0 (with Debian Etch''s kernel), that''s
possibly the
"original sin" that causes the rest of my problems.
I tried using also the kernel from xensource and RH''s xen kernel but it
didn''t help they didn''t boot or boot and got stuck early.
>
> > Do you have a sample .cfg file to run an HVM RHEL 4 (on Debian Etch,
> > Xen 3.0.3)?
> >
> No, sorry. Havent'' had the need to create one.
>
>
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-5-manual/Virtualization-en-US/task-virt-lab1.html
> says the steps (an therefore config) is the same as installing RHEL5

Yes, that''s the problem - all my searches yielded references to
"run these
programs and get the right config" without giving the actual .cfg file
content - I can''t use these tools on Debian, can I?
> Also - is there a way to run RHEL 4 i386 under Xen on an x86_64 host
> > (and be presented as a i386 machine to its processes)? One of the
> > things I tried was to start an HVM install but I just
couldn''t make it
> > go. The only way i could make it run was using Qemu.
> >
> That''s odd. It should work. I''ll try it out later.

There is big chance that i just didn''t know how to configure the HVM
correctly.

On another note, if you use Xen 3.1, you should be able to use
dom0
> x86_64 and domU i386 kernel, PV guest. I believe this is a better
> approach since PV guests gives better performance compared to HVM.

Yes I read that 3.1 supports mixed 32/64. I tried to upgrade to 3.1 on Etch
but it wasn''t smooth and broke the little I already achieved so I
rolled
back to the "native" 3.0.3 ("native" in the sense that
it''s part of Etch).
> Attempting to run a jailtime i386 image on an x86_64 machine created a
> > weird "Chimera" where the packages that came from
jailtime''s image ran
> > fine but any execution of "yum" insisted on bringing in i686
packages
>
> Why would i686 be a problem?

Sorry, I mixed up the RH arch names - it was trying to install 64bit
versions (x86_64) not i686, pulling tons of basic packages with it (e.g.
libc) and complaining about conflicts with existing packages or not being
able to find others.

Right now the situation is that I''m able to run Centos 4.4 32 bit from
Jaitime on Qemu, and Centos 4.4 and Centos 5.0 built using instructions from
http://faiwiki.informatik.uni-koeln.de/index.php/FAI_multi-distribution#bootstrapping_the_base_images__for_other_distributionsusing
Xen (and Windows 2003 Server HVM, but that''s secondary :) all on
Debian Etch and Xen 3.0.3 from Debian''s packages on a Xeomn 3050 (VT
enabled). Being able to run Centos 4.4 32 bit on Xen would make things a bit
cleaner.

Thanks for your help.

--Amos


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Fajar A. Nugraha wrote:
> Brian Lavender wrote:
>   
>> I am trying to install Redhat 6.2 as an HVM guest. Will this work? 
>>
>>   
>>     
> First, a question. Have you ever tried to install RH 6.2 on a modern
> Intel CPU?
> My guess is it wouldn''t work. CPU-wise, Xen will pretty much
present
> whatever CPU present at dom0 to domU. Meaning if it crashed on a real
> machine, it would also crash on a HVM guest.
>
> That being said, I believe the earliest RHEL version certified to run as
> HVM guest is RHEL3, and the earliest RHEL version certified to run as PV
> guest is 4.5.
>
> Regards,
>
> Fajar
>   
RH 6.2 is dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead, put a shroud over it and have 
drinks around it as we remember those late nights taking it out for its 
first big party.

That being said, it still operates inside of a chroot cage from RHEL 5, 
as does RedHat 7.3 (which I had to do last year, shudder!) So I don''t 
think the CPU itself is a big issue. The disk drivers, now *that''s* 
another story, there have been significant revisions to the IDE and SCSI 
drivers since 6.2, and getting a test bench to play with sounds like 
quite a lot of work.

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Fajar A. Nugraha wrote:
> Amos Shapira wrote:
>   
>> On 06/11/2007, *Fajar A. Nugraha* <fajar@telkom.net.id
>> <mailto:fajar@telkom.net.id>> wrote:
>>
>>     Brian Lavender wrote:
>>     >
>>     > I am trying to install Redhat 6.2 as an HVM guest. Will this
work?
>>     >
>>     >
>>     First, a question. Have you ever tried to install RH 6.2 on a
modern
>>     Intel CPU?
>>     My guess is it wouldn''t work. CPU-wise, Xen will pretty
much present
>>     whatever CPU present at dom0 to domU. Meaning if it crashed on a
real
>>     machine, it would also crash on a HVM guest.
>>
>>     That being said, I believe the earliest RHEL version certified to
>>     run as
>>     HVM guest is RHEL3, and the earliest RHEL version certified to run
>>     as PV
>>     guest is 4.5.
>>
>>
>> Really?
>>
>> Good to know - i''ve just spend a few days trying (and
eventually
>> succeeding) to install RHEL 4.4 x64 as a PV guest on an Intel Xeon
3050.
>>     
> Just curious. You DO use RHEL4''s kernel-xenU package, and not
> CentOS/RHEL 5''s kernel-xen for your domU, right? I believe
kernel-xen
> for RHEL4 is available starting from RHEL 4.5.
>   
Xensource publishes considerably more recent kernel-xen packages than 
does RedHat, including ones for RHEL 3 and RHEL 4. RedHat doesn''t 
publish a Xen package for RHEL 4, only for RHEL 5, with kernel-xenU 
packages for RHEL 4. (I didn''t look for RHEL 3).

>> Do you have a sample .cfg file to run an HVM RHEL 4 (on Debian Etch,
>> Xen 3.0.3)?
>>
>>     
> No, sorry. Havent'' had the need to create one.
>
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-5-manual/Virtualization-en-US/task-virt-lab1.html
> says the steps (an therefore config) is the same as installing RHEL5
>   
You wind up with a different kernel, kernel-xenU that is 2.6.9 based, 
and not kernel-xen which is 2.6.18. They''ve clearly done some oddnesses
to the Anaconda installation tool suite to accomodate Xen. And thee are 
some fascinating firewall issues with that kernel-xenU in place.


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On Tue, Nov 06, 2007 at 08:54:56AM +0000, Nico Kadel-Garcia
wrote:
> Fajar A. Nugraha wrote:
> >Brian Lavender wrote:
> >  
> >>I am trying to install Redhat 6.2 as an HVM guest. Will this work? 
> >>
> >>  
> >>    
> >First, a question. Have you ever tried to install RH 6.2 on a modern
> >Intel CPU?
> >My guess is it wouldn''t work. CPU-wise, Xen will pretty much
present
> >whatever CPU present at dom0 to domU. Meaning if it crashed on a real
> >machine, it would also crash on a HVM guest.
> >
> >That being said, I believe the earliest RHEL version certified to run
as
> >HVM guest is RHEL3, and the earliest RHEL version certified to run as
PV
> >guest is 4.5.
> >
> >Regards,
> >
> >Fajar
> >  
> RH 6.2 is dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead, put a shroud over it and have 
> drinks around it as we remember those late nights taking it out for its 
> first big party.
> 
> That being said, it still operates inside of a chroot cage from RHEL 5, 
> as does RedHat 7.3 (which I had to do last year, shudder!) So I
don''t
> think the CPU itself is a big issue. The disk drivers, now
*that''s*
> another story, there have been significant revisions to the IDE and SCSI 
> drivers since 6.2, and getting a test bench to play with sounds like 
> quite a lot of work.
RH 6.2 has Wu-ftp which has a nice exploit in it for network security
testing. The boot CD wouldn''t boot on this server, so it
doesn''t appear
to be Xen''s fault. 

brian
-- 
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http://www.brie.com/brian/

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Amos Shapira wrote:
> On 06/11/2007, *Fajar A. Nugraha* <fajar@telkom.net.id
> <mailto:fajar@telkom.net.id>> wrote:
>
>     Amos Shapira wrote:
>     > Good to know - i''ve just spend a few days trying (and
eventually
>     > succeeding) to install RHEL 4.4 x64 as a PV guest on an Intel
>     Xeon 3050.
>     Just curious. You DO use RHEL4''s kernel-xenU package, and not
>     CentOS/RHEL 5''s kernel-xen for your domU, right? I believe
kernel-xen
>     for RHEL4 is available starting from RHEL 4.5.
>
>
> I use Debian Etch for Dom0 (with Debian Etch''s kernel),
that''s
> possibly the "original sin" that causes the rest of my problems.
> I tried using also the kernel from xensource and RH''s xen kernel
but
> it didn''t help they didn''t boot or boot and got stuck
early.
I''d say this is probably one of those times when having a vendor
support
is great :)
FYI, I tried using custom-built Xen-3.1, which works like a charm for
Windows and Solaris HVM, but leaves RHEL 4 HVM with network problems :-P
For the time being I''m switching back to RH''s Xen packages.
This leaves
Solaris HVM with network problems though.
>
>     >
>     > Do you have a sample .cfg file to run an HVM RHEL 4 (on Debian
Etch,
>     > Xen 3.0.3)?
>     >
>     No, sorry. Havent'' had the need to create one.
>    
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-5-manual/Virtualization-en-US/task-virt-lab1.html
>     says the steps (an therefore config) is the same as installing RHEL5
>
>
> Yes, that''s the problem - all my searches yielded references to
"run
> these programs and get the right config" without giving the actual
> .cfg file content - I can''t use these tools on Debian, can I?
>
Having test it personally, this config should work
===============import os, re
arch = os.uname()[4]
if re.search(''64'', arch):
    arch_libdir = ''lib64''
else:
    arch_libdir = ''lib''

kernel = "/usr/lib/xen/boot/hvmloader"
builder=''hvm''

memory = 512
apic=1
acpi=1
pae=1

cpus = "^0"

vif = [ ''type=ioemu, mac=00:16:3E:BA:73:48, bridge=br128'' ]

disk = [ ''phy:/dev/vg/rhel4lv,ioemu:hda,w'',
        
''file:/usr/src/iso/RHEL4-U5-i386-ES-disc1.iso,hdd:cdrom,r'' ]

device_model = ''/usr/'' + arch_libdir +
''/xen/bin/qemu-dm''
boot="cda"

sdl=0
vnc=1
vncunused=0
vncpasswd=''''

stdvga=0
serial=''pty''
localtime=1
======================
This config creates a VNC console with the same number as your domain
ID, so if after xm create your domain ID is 3, you can connect with
"vncviewer localhost:3"

Note that for installation I use "linux askmethod", and choose network
install (the CD is only for initial booting). It''s easier than having
to
change CD.
>
>     > Also - is there a way to run RHEL 4 i386 under Xen on an x86_64
host
>     > (and be presented as a i386 machine to its processes)? One of the
>     > things I tried was to start an HVM install but I just
couldn''t
>     make it
>     > go. The only way i could make it run was using Qemu.
>     >
>     That''s odd. It should work. I''ll try it out later.
>
>
> There is big chance that i just didn''t know how to configure the
HVM
> correctly.
>
HVM works.
You might also want to look at http://people.redhat.com/riel/RHEL4-Xen-HOWTO

>
>     > Attempting to run a jailtime i386 image on an x86_64 machine
>     created a
>     > weird "Chimera" where the packages that came from
jailtime''s
>     image ran
>     > fine but any execution of "yum" insisted on bringing in
i686
>     packages
>
>     Why would i686 be a problem?
>
>
> Sorry, I mixed up the RH arch names - it was trying to install 64bit
> versions (x86_64) not i686, pulling tons of basic packages with it
> (e.g. libc) and complaining about conflicts with existing packages or
> not being able to find others.
>
It should''t do that. I can run i386 domU''s using x86_64 kernel
just
fine. Then again, I use my own custom-built image :)
You might be able to work around that by changing all references of
$arch and $basearch to i386 on /etc/yum.conf and /etc/yum.repos.d/*.repo.

> Right now the situation is that I''m able to run Centos 4.4 32 bit
from
> Jaitime on Qemu, and Centos 4.4 and Centos 5.0 built using
> instructions from
>
http://faiwiki.informatik.uni-koeln.de/index.php/FAI_multi-distribution#bootstrapping_the_base_images__for_other_distributions
> using Xen (and Windows 2003 Server HVM, but that''s secondary :)
all on
> Debian Etch and Xen 3.0.3 from Debian''s packages on a Xeomn 3050
(VT
> enabled). Being able to run Centos 4.4 32 bit on Xen would make things
> a bit cleaner.
>
If you use 32bit dom0, I''d recommend following RH''s tutorial.

If you use 64bit dom0, for best performance I''d recommend using 64bit
kernel/32 bit Centos 4.4 domU. However, If you need kernel-specific
functions (like iptables, ipvsadm) you should stick with HVM domU.

Regards,

Fajar

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Fajar A. Nugraha wrote:
>>     > Also - is there a way to run RHEL 4 i386 under Xen on an
x86_64 host
>>     > (and be presented as a i386 machine to its processes)? One of
the
>>     > things I tried was to start an HVM install but I just
couldn''t
>>     make it
>>     > go. The only way i could make it run was using Qemu.
>>     >
>>     That''s odd. It should work. I''ll try it out
later.
>>
>>
>> There is big chance that i just didn''t know how to configure
the HVM
>> correctly.
>>
>>     
> HVM works.
> You might also want to look at
http://people.redhat.com/riel/RHEL4-Xen-HOWTO
>
>
>   
... and I just want to say, that having tested Fedora8/development
kernel, I can confirm that 32 on 64 works as expected. In the test setup
I use :
- RHEL5 x86_64 dom0
- F8''s kernel-xen-2.6.21-2950.fc8.x86_64.rpm
- custom-built xen-3.1.1 rpm
- RHEL 4.5 i386 domU, with kernel-xenU-2.6.9-55.EL

You could simplify things a lot by simply using F8 for dom0.

Just follow the tutorial and it should work. Note that even though it says
"
3)  Herbert Xu''s network segmentation offload could not be
    backported to RHEL4 without destabilizing the network
    layer for non-Xen kernels too, so network performance
    in RHEL4 Xen guests will not be as good as that in RHEL5.
"

testing with iperf says I have 1.60 Gbits/sec transfer rate from dom0 to
domU, so network works just fine.

Regards,

Fajar

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