[CentOS] virt-manager crashes Host during installation of guest

Bernhard Gschaider bgschaid_lists at ice-sf.at
Wed Aug 19 23:47:07 UTC 2009


Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer in this thread.

I'm just writing this message to give this thread some closure and am
not expecting any answers 

>>>>> On Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:29:33 -0700 (PDT)
>>>>> "IM" == Ian Murray <murrayie at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

    >> > This (and other replies) lead me to two possible culprits: >
    >> - either the graphical console over X11 is not a good idea (but
    >> I > can't imagine that, it shouldn't shoot the kernel) > - I
    >> always installed as a paravirtualized machine, Could it be that
    >> > the install-kernel on the 5.3-media is not aware of this and
    >> somehow > manages to shot the host (because I noticed that most
    >> recipies on > the > net, including
    >> http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Xen/ > InstallingCentOSDomU >
    >> never talk about paravirtualized (so I assume they use a fully
    >> > virtualized guest)
    >> >
    >> > I will try these later today (when people left the office and
    >> no one > will complain about server downtimes)
    >> >
    >> > Bernhard
    >> >
    >> > BTW: Just one fundamental question: as the upstream OS vendor
    >> is > switching his virtualization to KVM anyway, is it a good
    >> idea to > forget Xen and use KVM (in other words: is it stable
    >> enough for > production)?

    IM> Sorry for thread mucking. I did not receive this email, but
    IM> took it from a response.

    IM> The Xen wiki describes a paravirtual install. The config file
    IM> would have a line like builder="hvm" if it was fully
    IM> virtualised guest. AFAIK the graphical view is just a VNC
    IM> session, so I would be surprised if that managed to trash your
    IM> kernel. More likely it's something that the guest is doing
    IM> that is causing the issue. You could always prepare your
    IM> guests on a different machine and transfer them
    IM> later. Ofcourse, if you had a command of xm, that is.

I tried removing both suspects by

 - following the Wiki-Howto to the letter (especially using the
   Xen-install-kernels)
 - instead of going over the network I worked directly at the machine
   (although I totally agree that a VNC-session shouldn't be ble to shoot
   the machine)

but the problem is still there. When I start the configured machine
that points to an install-kernel with

xm create newGuest -c

I see the kernel boot up until it comes to the message

Write protecting the kernel read-only data

where it hangs for some seconds, then the screen goes blank and the
machine reboots.

I'm starting to suspect that it is somehow hardware-related (it is a
Fujitsu-Siemens Synergy server with a RAID-controller) and I will
investigate in that direction

    IM> As I said before, I would recommend the xen list for this
    IM> specific issue.

Will look there to, thanks

    IM> As for the Xen vs whatever issue, I was disappointed when it
    IM> became clear that Upstream was going to push another
    IM> technology, having spent last year or two trying to learn Xen
    IM> (and I am no expert, at all). Having said that, I've heard of
    IM> issues with speed with KVM and I haven't had any such issues
    IM> with Xen. My only issue with Xen is that the official releases
    IM> are based on quite an old kernel, which is fine for CentOS, bc
    IM> it is the same as the vanilla kernel. Anecdotally, a lot of
    IM> issues on the xen list IMHO seem to arise from ppl using later
    IM> patched kernels, which perhaps isn't the best route for
    IM> stability.

As I'm using the latest kernel that comes with the 5.3-updates and the
machine has nothing but the standard-5.3 stuff on it, I don't think
this is the case

Bernhard
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