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

Mon Aug 24 16:04:06 UTC 2009
Bernhard Gschaider <bgschaid_lists at ice-sf.at>

>>>>> On Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:47:07 +0200
>>>>> "BG" == Bernhard Gschaider <bgschaid_lists at ice-sf.at> wrote:

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

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

I found the cause of my problem. I'll answer to my own posting,
because none of the follow-ups lead to the solution, the reason being
that I withheld some vital information for the diagnosis:

The filesystem which the disk-image for the virtual machine resides on
is XFS!

Googling around I found indications that there are indications that
XEN and XFS are not the best of friends, but nobody hinted at
something as drastic as completely freezing the host.

Anyway. When I create the image on an ext3-partition and point the
configuration to it (no other changes) the installation works without
problems. 

Bernhard

PS: There were speculations in the replies, that this was my first
Xen-experience. I want to stress that I have already a running
Xen-machine, that's why I was surprised that it didn't work this time
(but I set that one up a year ago, so technically I am starting anew
with Xen and the speculations are right)

>>>>> 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)?

    BG> I tried removing both suspects by

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

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

    BG> xm create newGuest -c

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

    BG> Write protecting the kernel read-only data

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

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


-- 
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DI Bernhard F.W. Gschaider
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EMail: 	Bernhard.Gschaider at ice-sf.at
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