Xen users - Jan 2008 - Xen Over SuSE 10.3 - Dog Catches Car - Thank you Jim and Jonathon

Dear List-Colleagues:

                Thank you to all who have taken the time to look at my post and
especially thanks to Jim and Jonathon and their suggestions and questions!  I
shall attempt to answer the questions and also indicate what I have attempted as
a result:

1) Jim Burns: lists latest modules - I saw those on Yast but was too afraid to
alter what came with my original rpm''s from xen.org downloads while the
system was not working.  I can certainly yast for these!
2) Jonathan: you are right, it is dom0!  All the scarce documentation and posts
on the internet suggest that, indeed, it should ''just work.'' 
This is why I am perplexed.
3) Jonathon:  To the best of my - limited - knowledge that kernel is installed,
after all Xen actually starts!
4) Jonathon:  No I did not originally have an ".img" file there, but
some instructions from Xen show it that way and in my desperation, I tried that
too, just haven''t changed it back, yet.
5) Jonathon: "vnlinuz" - yes, it was a typo - my menu.lst has the
correct, ''vmlinuz.''
6) I downloaded the OpenSuSE 10 download from Xen.org - it seemed to be the only
choice to match SuSE 10.3 (remember I am totally innocent!) - wasn''t
that correct, btw?  I note that Yast, at one point, wanted to update it but
failed on some obscure error, while trying to do so.  As noted previously, I was
not going to accept a different kernel version, provided by Yast, until I knew
the kernel actually provided by Xen was working.  It did not seem wise to
confuse the issue by switching in mid-stream (especially not with a technology,
Yast, that I did not understand very well and with consequences that to my
ignorance were obscure).

Summary:

I installed the rpm''s from Xen downloads the note next to the rpms
stated:

"Current community release of Xen and Dom0 kernel packages for installation
on OpenSUSE 10."

This is what I installed as I had just installed SuSE 10.3

I managed to get all the things downloaded and installed that Xen needs as
dependencies and I got Xen to start.  I had a fair bit of rather ugly trouble
along the way and would not be at all surprised that my original install of the
Xen rpm''s (despite their seeming to go without a hitch) were not good. 
Be that as it may, here I am with a Xen install that won''t finish
loading and with - from the look of the questions and suggestions I have
received plus what I have read on the ''net - missing files and/or
modules.

Resolution:

Jim gave me the courage and the reason to YaST2 for the 2.6.22.13 kernel.  I got
it and it installed without complaint, installed its own GRUB entry and that
matched what Jim furnished.  Of course it would not run.  This time it was
because there was no xen-pae.gz file existing on my machine!  More research,
more trying this and that and tracking down documentation.  Apparently, YaST2
has a ''virtualization'' option right in the main menu.  No such
option - anywhere.  More research, persuaded YaST2 to install the option.  No
updates of any sort would run as all failed on dependency issues.  Finally,
having installed the virtualization option I attempted to ONLY get a kernel
update from YaST2 - a long download later that was all installed and the missing
.gz appeared in the right place!  I ran other updates - no problem now.

I rebooted and nearly died.  After more than a person-week of effort I had Xen
running!  Now, of course, I feel like the old joke about the dog who chased cars
every day - till the day he caught one!  Dog got bumper, Newbie gets to learn
Xen.

Again, I would like to thank both Jim (who, ultimately got me on the right
track) and Jonathan, a very great deal, as I was in Hell.

Question: Why does the xen.org downloads repository still have the 2.16.18
kernel?  Shouldn''t it be updated for Suse 10 to the later kernel?  IF
this is a case of a mismatch between the rpms and the type of SuSE I am running
couldn''t this be clarified for other newbies?  Shouldn''t
instructions be added for people going to this download site suggesting to them
it might be wiser to install Xen at SuSE install time or to use YaST?  This all
cost me a staggering amount of time...

Again, thanks to the list!

Best,

Pyrrhic

...all that is Gold does not glitter,
not all those who wander are lost...
       
---------------------------------
Never miss a thing.   Make Yahoo your homepage.

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On Friday 11 January 2008 07:36:35 pm Pyrrhic wrote:
> Again, thanks to the list!
Ouch! - Glad you got it to work. All those dependency problems sound like you 
still had the xen.org rpms installed. A clean install would involve 
uninstalling them (rpm -e ...), then installing the Virtualization group in 
Yast2.

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On Saturday 12 January 2008 08:36:35 Pyrrhic wrote:
> Question: Why does the xen.org downloads repository still have the
> 2.16.18 kernel?  Shouldn''t it be updated for Suse 10 to the later
> kernel?  IF this is a case of a mismatch between the rpms and the
> type of SuSE I am running couldn''t this be clarified for other
> newbies?  Shouldn''t instructions be added for people going to this
> download site suggesting to them it might be wiser to install Xen at
> SuSE install time or to use YaST?  This all cost me a staggering
> amount of time...
That particular web site for downloading Xen RPMs is not well labelled 
in my opinion. It is listing RPMs available for openSUSE 10 which, 
admittedly being pedantic here, isn''t an actual released distribution. 
The first distribution to be released as openSUSE was 10.2 with prior 
releases called SUSE Linux 10.1 and SUSE Linux 10.0.

There is however, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 available (the 
important point here being the full name and lack of decimal point). As 
the other downloads on that page are for RHEL, I would be 99.999% 
certain that the ''openSUSE 10'' download is _actually_ meant
for SLES
10. This is further confirmed as SLES 10 uses the 2.6.18 series of 
kernels.

For openSUSE (and I would suspect the majority of distributions) you''re
far better off installing the version(s) of Xen that have been supplied 
with the distribution, particularly if you''re new to Xen, as Jim has 
pointed you to doing. I''m pleased to hear that everything seems to be 
working now. As a new user I''d suggest starting with trying a 
para-virtual installation of openSUSE 10.3. Admittedly, not the most 
exciting installation to perform (openSUSE on openSUSE), but it should 
give you an initial idea of how Xen works on 10.3.

Good luck,
Jon

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