Xen users - Jan 2010 - Fedora 11 Xen guest install not completing

Host: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4
Hardware: HP Proliant BL460c G6
48G RAM total

When attempting to install a Fedora 11 Xen guest, the guest install is
freezing at "initializing cgroup subsys net_cls".  I currently have
RHEL 5.4 and RHEL 4.8 guests running successfully under the same dom0,
each using 4G RAM.  I have attempted to load the Fedora 11 guest with
anything between 1G and 4G RAM, and between 1-4 CPUs, all with the
same result.  Has anyone seen this before when loading Fedora as a
guest, and know what I need to do to resolve this under Xen?

Thanks

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On Fri, Jan 08, 2010 at 03:20:30PM -0500, Michael Brown
wrote:
> Host: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4
> Hardware: HP Proliant BL460c G6
> 48G RAM total
> 
> When attempting to install a Fedora 11 Xen guest, the guest install is
> freezing at "initializing cgroup subsys net_cls".  I currently
have
> RHEL 5.4 and RHEL 4.8 guests running successfully under the same dom0,
> each using 4G RAM.  I have attempted to load the Fedora 11 guest with
> anything between 1G and 4G RAM, and between 1-4 CPUs, all with the
> same result.  Has anyone seen this before when loading Fedora as a
> guest, and know what I need to do to resolve this under Xen?
> 
What kind of hardware you have? 

RHEL 5.4 Xen has a bug, where it doesn''t mask out some cpuid features
of some new CPUs from the guest. This can cause problems with some guests.

Fedora 11 default (installer) kernel has a bug, where it tries to use
some forbidden features in the guest, if they''re not masked out by
hypervisor cpuid masking.

So these two bugs combined can make F11 guest crash on EL 5.4 Xen.

Two solutions:

- Run later F11 (update) kernel in the guest, which has this bug fixed.
  (obviously not possible for the installer..)
- Run updated Xen on the host. There''s a ''virttest''
kernel available for
  RHEL 5.4, which fixes this cpuid masking bug. This fix will also be
  part of upcoming RHEL 5.5.

I''m not sure if this is the bug you''re seeing, but it could
be.. depends
on your hardware.

See: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=524719

So either try the ''virttest'' kernel from that bugzilla, or
then the
latest EL 5.5 beta kernel from:
http://people.redhat.com/jwilson/el5/

-- Pasi


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On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 9:17 AM, Pasi Kärkkäinen <pasik@iki.fi>
wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 08, 2010 at 03:20:30PM -0500, Michael Brown wrote:
>> Host: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4
>> Hardware: HP Proliant BL460c G6
>> 48G RAM total
>>
>> When attempting to install a Fedora 11 Xen guest, the guest install is
>> freezing at "initializing cgroup subsys net_cls".  I
currently have
>> RHEL 5.4 and RHEL 4.8 guests running successfully under the same dom0,
>> each using 4G RAM.  I have attempted to load the Fedora 11 guest with
>> anything between 1G and 4G RAM, and between 1-4 CPUs, all with the
>> same result.  Has anyone seen this before when loading Fedora as a
>> guest, and know what I need to do to resolve this under Xen?
>>
>
> What kind of hardware you have?
>
> RHEL 5.4 Xen has a bug, where it doesn''t mask out some cpuid
features
> of some new CPUs from the guest. This can cause problems with some guests.
>
> Fedora 11 default (installer) kernel has a bug, where it tries to use
> some forbidden features in the guest, if they''re not masked out by
> hypervisor cpuid masking.
>
> So these two bugs combined can make F11 guest crash on EL 5.4 Xen.
>
> Two solutions:
>
> - Run later F11 (update) kernel in the guest, which has this bug fixed.
>  (obviously not possible for the installer..)
> - Run updated Xen on the host. There''s a
''virttest'' kernel available for
>  RHEL 5.4, which fixes this cpuid masking bug. This fix will also be
>  part of upcoming RHEL 5.5.
>
> I''m not sure if this is the bug you''re seeing, but it
could be.. depends
> on your hardware.
>
> See: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=524719
>
> So either try the ''virttest'' kernel from that bugzilla,
or then the
> latest EL 5.5 beta kernel from:
> http://people.redhat.com/jwilson/el5/
>
> -- Pasi
>
>
Thanks for the info and links!

The hardware I''m using is an HP Proliant BL460c G6 blade server.  I
can''t tell from the bugzilla if this hardware is affected by the bugs
you mentioned or not.  In any event, I will try the test/beta kernels
to determine if those resolve the issue.

Michael

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