server hangs while having a text based installation of Centos DomU on Lenny

tkmsr · 05-18-2010, 12:46 PM

I am installing CentOs 5.5 as DomU on Debian Lenny running amd64
2.6.26-2-xen-amd64

I downloaded two files vmlinuz and initrd from here
http://mirrors.kernel.org/centos/5.5...64/images/xen/
copied them to /boot and changed their names to
vmlinuz-xen-install
and initrd-xen-install

In my /etc/xen-tools/xen-tools.conf
I made following changes to be able to install centOS domu via rinse method

Code:

install-method = rinse
dist   = centos-5
kernel      = /boot/vmlinuz-xen-install
initrd      = /boot/initrd-xen-install

I mounted a CentOS5.5. ISO
dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/root/centos.iso bs=1024 count=1
mount -t iso9660 -o loop /root/centos.iso /root/inscd/

So /root/inscd/ had the contents of CentOS cd

Then I did to create image

Code:

xen-create-image --hostname=new_centOS --size=96GB --swap=2048 Mb --ip=192.1.100.19 --memory=1024 --arch=amd64 --role=udev --force --install-method=rinse --install-source=/root/inscd/

every thing went fine
at the end there was a new_centOS.cfg file
Then executed
xm create new_centOS.cfg -c
the output is following and it hanged in between no more proceeding.

Code:

Using config file "./new_centOS.cfg".
Started domain new_centOS
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 262144 bind 65536)
TCP reno registered
audit: initializing netlink socket (disabled)
type=2000 audit(1274202380.846:1): initialized
VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1
Dquot-cache hash table entries: 512 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
Initializing Cryptographic API
alg: No test for crc32c (crc32c-generic)
ksign: Installing public key data
Loading keyring
- Added public key C596239A507DE7FD
- User ID: CentOS (Kernel Module GPG key)
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler anticipatory registered
io scheduler deadline registered
io scheduler cfq registered (default)
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
rtc: IRQ 8 is not free.
Non-volatile memory driver v1.2
Linux agpgart interface v0.101 (c) Dave Jones
brd: module loaded
Xen virtual console successfully installed as xvc0
Event-channel device installed.
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 100x37
input: Xen Virtual Keyboard/Mouse as /class/input/input0
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 50MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide
usbcore: registered new driver hiddev
usbcore: registered new driver usbhid
drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.6:USB HID core driver
PNP: No PS/2 controller found. Probing ports directly.
i8042.c: No controller found.
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
md: md driver 0.90.3 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: bitmap version 4.39
TCP bic registered
Initializing IPsec netlink socket
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 17
XENBUS: Device with no driver: device/vbd/51713
XENBUS: Device with no driver: device/vbd/51714
XENBUS: Device with no driver: device/vif/0
XENBUS: Device with no driver: device/console/0
Initalizing network drop monitor service
Write protecting the kernel read-only data: 483k

Giving only upto this much message it had hanged.
What might have gone wrong any guesses?

BocketyWheel · 01-31-2011, 11:47 PM

I know this is old, but just so this has an answer..
I had a similar problem--it stopped just after the "Write protecting the kernel read-only data: 483k" message.

In my case I discovered that is when Xen hands off the console to the VNC server.
I had this line in my config and that was making it boot to a VNC console regardlessly:

Code:

vfb = [ "type=vnc,vncunused=1,keymap=en-us" ]

I commented this out & was fine!

tkmsr · 01-31-2011, 11:56 PM

Well I asked this question in may 2010 and it is Fed 2011 but thanks for your reply.Coming to the point since I have wiped of the server so I am not in a position to test what you just said above but do let me know on what basis you suggested above.
Since I do not have the server with Debian so I Can not test it but I surely would like to refer to this thread (may be it will help many others) and check what you said on a future date.
Let me know some link or some thing as what made you give such statement.

BocketyWheel · 02-04-2011, 01:13 AM

I knew the topic was old, but this thread came high on the search list when I ran into the problem, and I'm sure other people will run into this problem at some point, so it's good to have at least one answer.

In my troubleshooting to see what was going wrong, I discovered that Xen appeared to be spawning a new VNC when I booted the new VM (by running lsof on the server & seeing a new vncserver listening on a :590x port).
From there, it was just a quick check through the options in the config file to see the virtual frame buffer (vfb) reference.
(fwiw, this config was a copy of another made with the virt-manager on CentOS--again, the reference to the vfb made sense (virt-man can show (presumably via vnc) the consoles of all the VMs it creates))

tkmsr · 02-04-2011, 03:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BocketyWheel

I knew the topic was old, but this thread came high on the search list when I ran into the problem, and I'm sure other people will run into this problem at some point, so it's good to have at least one answer.

I asked this question on Xen mailing list and for the reason you cited I am giving a link so that if some one searches it can help them.
1) http://lists.xensource.com/archives/.../msg00657.html
2) http://lists.xensource.com/archives/...-01/index.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by BocketyWheel

In my troubleshooting to see what was going wrong, I discovered that Xen appeared to be spawning a new VNC when I booted the new VM (by running lsof on the server & seeing a new vncserver listening on a :590x port).

I was not able to understand this part can you a bit describe it more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BocketyWheel

From there, it was just a quick check through the options in the config file to see the virtual frame buffer (vfb) reference.

I am not clear still

Quote:

Originally Posted by BocketyWheel

(fwiw, this config was a copy of another made with the virt-manager on CentOS--again, the reference to the vfb made sense (virt-man can show (presumably via vnc) the consoles of all the VMs it creates))

Yes I understand virt-manager I used KVM with it

super_chicken · 02-07-2011, 10:58 AM

I just hit this problem too.

A friend was logged into the same system and was able to successfully install. In looking at the env difference between mine has his shell, the only difference was that I had DISPLAY defined, he did not. When I unset DISPLAY it worked fine.

BocketyWheel · 02-08-2011, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tkmsr

Quote:

Originally Posted by BocketyWheel

In my troubleshooting to see what was going wrong, I discovered that Xen appeared to be spawning a new VNC when I booted the new VM (by running lsof on the server & seeing a new vncserver listening on a :590x port).

I was not able to understand this part can you a bit describe it more.

In doing some basic debugging, eg, see what changed in the system before & after I started the new VM instance, I discovered the addition of another VNC server.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tkmsr

Quote:

Originally Posted by BocketyWheel

From there, it was just a quick check through the options in the config file to see the virtual frame buffer (vfb) reference.

I am not clear still

the 'vfb' option in my config file is the configuration for virtual frame buffer. It's typically used to create a VNC-based console.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tkmsr

Yes I understand virt-manager I used KVM with it

This was another clue that the previous VMs (which I copied the config from) were configured to use a VNC console.

Quote:

Originally Posted by super_chicken

When I unset DISPLAY it worked fine.

That's a good confirmation--that message "Write protecting the kernel read-only data: 483k" appears to be when Xen switches from the text-only console to a GUI console if it's going to. (and because you had your $DISPLAY set, Xen probably figured you wanted a GUI console, and without X, it defaulted to text-only)