[Xen-users] Xen PXE boot problem

Joe Linoff
2010-12-28T01:47:26Z

Hi Folks:

This may not be a Xen problem. If that is the case, I apologize in
advance but I was not sure where to turn to for help.

Can anyone help with this? I am a bit stuck. I would be quite happy with
a workaround (like: use the default kickstart to post-install the Xen
kernel for the standard image) but it would be really helpful to know
why it isn''t working.

I am trying using cobbler (2.0.9-1) to PXE boot a Xen hypervisor
(3.0.3-105) based on CentOS 5.5 (2.6.18.194.26.1.el5) on a bare-metal
host over a network. The boot keeps failing with a "corrupted or
invalid" kernel message. When I tried PXE booting with the regular
CentOS 5.5 image from the same distribution it works which seems to
indicate that the network/DHCP/PXE/TFTP structural setup is sound.

The ISO image is from: http://mirrors.ecvps.com/centos/5.5/isos/x86_64/.
The checksum is

    # sum ./CentOS-5.5-x86_64-bin-DVD-1of2.iso
    00922 4290746

Here is the content of the MAC based cfg file. Note that I manually
changed the timeout to 10 so that I could read the error message.

    # cat /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/01-<mac_address>
    prompt 0
    timeout 10
    label linux
            kernel /images/CentOS5.5-xen-x86_64/vmlinuz
            ipappend 2
            append initrd=/images/CentOS5.5-xen-x86_64/initrd.img
ksdevice=bootif lang=  kssendmac text
ks=http://192.168.3.10/cblr/svc/op/ks/system/hv01

Here is the content of the default cfg file:

    # cat /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default
    DEFAULT menu
    PROMPT 0
    MENU TITLE Cobbler | http://fedorahosted.org/cobbler
    TIMEOUT 200
    TOTALTIMEOUT 6000
    ONTIMEOUT local

    LABEL local
            MENU LABEL (local)
            MENU DEFAULT
            LOCALBOOT 0

    LABEL CentOS5.5-x86_64
            kernel /images/CentOS5.5-x86_64/vmlinuz
            MENU LABEL CentOS5.5-x86_64
            append initrd=/images/CentOS5.5-x86_64/initrd.img
ksdevice=bootif lang=  kssendmac text
ks=http://192.168.3.10/cblr/svc/op/ks/profile/CentOS5.5-x86_64
        ipappend 2


    MENU end

I verified that the vmlinuz and initrd.img files have the correct
checksums with respect to the ISO image. I also verified that shortening
the path and removing extra "-"''s had no impact :-)

Thanks,

Joe