Xen users - Dec 2007 - Principal question: XEN 3.1.0 and initrd

Hello!

I would like to use XEN 3.1.0 on a debian etch system. I have downloaded
and installed the tarball from xen.org, but booting the xen kernel /
hypervisor (Dom0) failed.

The boot partition resides on a raid array (3ware 9650SE), so I started
the previous kernel (without xen) and did the following:

depmod -e -F /boot/System.map-2.6.18-xen 2.6.18-xen
mkinitrd -o /boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-xen 2.6.18-xen

My /etc/mkinitrd/modules looks like:

#<some comments>
scsi_mod
sd_mod
3w-xxxx
jbd
ext3

My /etc/mkinitrd/mkinitrd.conf contains (besides other entries):

MODULES=all # for testing
ROOT=probe

My /boot/grub/menu.lst contains (besides other entries):

title           Xen 3.1.0 / Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-xen
root            (hd0,0)
kernel          /boot/xen-3.1.0.gz
module          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-xen ramdisk_size=32768
root=/dev/sda1 ro console=tty0
module          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-xen
savedefault

The depmod and mkinitrd commands did not produce any errors, so I am
quite sure the initrd img contains all neccessary drivers.

But when booting, the kernel says:

No filesystem could mount root. Tried: ext2

Then, some other error message, then panic. Why does it try ext2 instead
of ext3 although the latter is included in the ramdisk)? And even if
ext3 was not loaded for some reason: AFAIK, you can read ext3 partitions
with ext2 drivers... strange.

On http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Xen_and_Gentoo, in the section about
building xen kernels, I have read a statement which finally leads me to
complete confusion:

"You can use modules, but all drivers required to boot must be
builtin."

So my principal question is: If I want to boot a xen kernel from my
3ware controller, do I have to compile the driver for the controller
(and for ext3 etc) into the kernel directly? If yes, what sense does
initrd make anyway (when booting xen)?

Sorry for the long post, but during googling, rtfming and grouping I saw
that many other users have similar problems, so perhaps it would be
worth explaining the correlation between xen hypervisor, the xenidized
kernel and initrd from scratch, in easy words, by some expert....
especially what drivers can be loaded as modules from ramdisk image and
which drivers have definitely to be compiled into the kernel, and
finally, what are the general differences regarding initrd between a
standard kernel and an xen / dom0 kernel?

Thank you very much,

Peter


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Peter Pfannenschmid wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> I would like to use XEN 3.1.0 on a debian etch system. I have downloaded
> and installed the tarball from xen.org, but booting the xen kernel /
> hypervisor (Dom0) failed.
> [...]
You can get that easier and simpler:

Use Ralph Passgang''s (member of the debian xen team) readily built
packages, there''s even 3.1.2:

deb http://packages.debianbase.de/etch/i386/xen3.1 .
deb-src http://packages.debianbase.de/sources/xen3.1 .

That should work straightforward, the same way as with 3.0.3 on etch -
after the install and maybe an update-grub(but AFAIK this is not needed)
you have a grub bot entry to boot the newest Xen version.

Greetings,
Henning

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