tomorrows a new day...will try to get into the config files for a quest and see what I can do sdl kept choking....I am sure it is just a configuration error. however, most stuff is for rhel/centos 5.x and the newer packages are much mature and changed from the examples.

there are numerous errors in the dmesg like 'composite sync' and stuff relating to a grub bug, but I do not think that is it.

When I get it done, will post a vid and add to my forums for others to be able to just walk through it...if I ever get it figured out.

I just hate to think about being forced to go with gnome for my server...yuck.

Sorry if I seem a bit dumb in this question, but are these virtual servers going to be used in a production environment or are they test servers? Also, in my experience, using a GUI on a server is not really necessary, as everything can be done from the command line. Yes it may be easier to do it with a GUI, but if you know what you are doing and what to do it professionally, stick to using the command line and give the idea of using a desktop the flick.

Regards, Christopher Hawker

On 10/13/11, Bob Hoffman bob@bobhoffman.com wrote:

One of the mods requested some data, here ya go..think it is a video issue...

I think I am narrowing it down to choking on my ATI ES1000 controller..which might be causing some issues.

When I did a full desktop, everything worked okay though, but command line only or with x windows system video is a complete no go. although I can pull up text things like system-config-network, x will choke on config/hal: couldn't initialize context: (null) and pop right out. Display cannot open.

Its make sense because now and then my ipmi card just gets a blurry video image and I have to reset the card. Also, it just shuts off (loses connection/video) sometimes and I must login again. Thought it was the card...but... it only happens when I am installing linux or it is installed. If playing in bios it has never happened.

Tried the nomodeset thing, no change. SELinux: Starting in permissive mode

dmesg of insterest, command line, install with package 'virtual host'

ACPI Warning for _SB_._OSC: Return type mismatch - found Integer, expected Buffer (20090903/nspredef-1006) _SB_:_OSC evaluation returned wrong type _OSC request data:1 7 ACPI Warning: Incorrect checksum in table [OEMB] - 96, should be 8B (20090903/tbutils-314)

Firmware did not grant requested _OSC control (this was between pci hotplug stuff) Firmware did not grant requested _OSC control Firmware did not grant requested _OSC control Firmware did not grant requested _OSC control

composite sync not supported (with gnome installed there was a ton of these) composite sync not supported fbcon: radeondrmfb (fb0) is primary device [drm:radeon_i2c_sw_put_byte] *ERROR* i2c 0x08 0x30 write failed

[drm:radeon_i2c_sw_put_byte] *ERROR* i2c 0x09 0x00 write failed [drm:radeon_i2c_sw_put_byte] *ERROR* i2c 0x0a 0x90 write failed [drm:radeon_i2c_sw_put_byte] *ERROR* i2c 0x0c 0x89 write failed [drm:radeon_i2c_sw_put_byte] *ERROR* i2c 0x08 0x3b write failed Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 128x48 fb0: radeondrmfb frame buffer device drm: registered panic notifier

[drm] Initialized radeon 2.1.0 20080528 for 0000:01:01.0 on minor 0

composite sync not supported ( a couple more of these just appeared a few lines lower than the previous line) composite sync not supported

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below is a whole section that seems to have dealt with the video card, and all seems okay for this (earlier in the boot up than errors above)

---

[drm] Initialized drm 1.1.0 20060810 [drm] radeon defaulting to kernel modesetting. [drm] radeon kernel modesetting enabled. radeon 0000:01:01.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18 [drm] initializing kernel modesetting (RV100 0x1002:0x515E). [drm] register mmio base: 0xFBAD0000 [drm] register mmio size: 65536 radeon 0000:01:01.0: VRAM: 64M 0xD8000000 - 0xDBFFFFFF (32M used) radeon 0000:01:01.0: GTT: 512M 0xB8000000 - 0xD7FFFFFF [drm] radeon: irq initialized. [drm] Detected VRAM RAM=64M, BAR=128M [drm] RAM width 16bits DDR [TTM] Zone kernel: Available graphics memory: 12299360 kiB. [TTM] Zone dma32: Available graphics memory: 2097152 kiB. [drm] radeon: 32M of VRAM memory ready [drm] radeon: 512M of GTT memory ready. [drm] GART: num cpu pages 131072, num gpu pages 131072 [drm] Loading R100 Microcode platform radeon_cp.0: firmware: requesting radeon/R100_cp.bin [drm] radeon: ring at 0x00000000B8000000 [drm] ring test succeeded in 1 usecs [drm] radeon: ib pool ready. [drm] ib test succeeded in 0 usecs [drm] No TV DAC info found in BIOS [drm] No valid Ext TMDS info found in BIOS [drm] Radeon Display Connectors [drm] Connector 0: [drm] VGA [drm] DDC: 0x60 0x60 0x60 0x60 0x60 0x60 0x60 0x60 [drm] Encoders: [drm] CRT1: INTERNAL_DAC1 [drm] Connector 1: [drm] DVI-I [drm] HPD2 [drm] DDC: 0x6c 0x6c 0x6c 0x6c 0x6c 0x6c 0x6c 0x6c [drm] Encoders: [drm] CRT2: INTERNAL_DAC2 [drm] DFP2: INTERNAL_DVO1 _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

A simple google search returned this: http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/KVM I don't know if it is helpful or not.

On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 11:46 PM, Bob Hoffman bob@bobhoffman.com wrote:

chris hawker wrote

Sorry if I seem a bit dumb in this question, but are these virtual servers going to be used in a production environment or are they test servers? Also, in my experience, using a GUI on a server is not really necessary, as everything can be done from the command line. Yes it may be easier to do it with a GUI, but if you know what you are doing and what to do it professionally, stick to using the command line and give the idea of using a desktop the flick.

===========================

I do not want to use the desktop. I am in command line. It will not work. You cannot install a guest (production server, not test) without some kind of installation walk through. a text install, a vnc, sdl, whatever...it should be able to open a window to do so.

the only way I could get it to work was a full install of gnome and that is not workable. so little online with KVM and centos6, most are xen.

For some reason the virt-viewer and anything else cannot access my video for some reason. From looking online, this is a common issue among command line virt-installs..but no one ever posts a final solution..lol

So far, after a few weeks of this, I have been unable to install, via command line, one guest. I cannot get any kind of installer to come up in any kind of window/gui/etc.

very frustrating. Just sitting here with my useless brick of a computer unable to deploy it. Gonna call supermicro today and ask about the es1000. Also will try to install xorg to get to the xorg.conf and see if that can help, however most errors are deeper in the boot than xorg. Gonna try playing with the devices in grub I guess too. Was thinking of getting a second card and trying to see if that would work.

bugzilla had tons of people complaining about issues like this one...it is probably the es1000 choking the system....can't think of anything else that would cause displays that try to start to just die.

However, in full gnome, it works flawlessly...so that theory is a little off... Card must be working. Must be a setting in the basic 'virtual host' package that needs fine tuning.

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CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

=============

Bob Hoffman wrote: <snip>

/ very frustrating. Just sitting here with my useless brick of a computer

/>/ unable to deploy it. />/ Gonna call supermicro today and ask about the es1000. />/ Also will try to install xorg to get to the xorg.conf and see if that can />/ help, however most errors are deeper in the boot than xorg. /mark wrote Stil more pain, esp. since they decided to drop system-config-display, which would always get you at least a minimal working video.

May I strongly recommend yesterday's XKCDhttp://xkcd.com/963/? Talk about timely.... <snip>

===========

I am down to just a call to supermicro, which will probably be a waste. After that I think buying a cheap 'more compatible' vga card for the box might solve the problems. My last way out is to bite the bullet and install xorg/gnome/etc and hope it does not crash the guests.

Obviously centos 6 is pretty new, KVM is fairly new in a way (everyone does zen), its linux (<argh>), and KVM googles don't work so well with KVM switches out there..lol

Not sure of the path here, I know continually reinstalling, repackaging, playing with grub, etc...cannot be the way intended for a brand new install just to install a guest via command line. I am thinking new video card.

First time sorely disappointed with supermicro...very disappointed unless they have a fix.

On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Ljubomir Ljubojevic office@plnet.rswrote:

Vreme: 10/13/2011 04:23 PM, Bob Hoffman piše:

...

the way intended for a brand new install just to install a guest via command line. I am thinking new video card.

First time sorely disappointed with supermicro...very disappointed unless they have a fix. _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

1. CentOS-virt mailinglist should be still active.

2. Are you aware that you can have one Desktop PC with installed

Virt-Manager and use it to connect to running libvird (KVM) daemon on your server? I have KVM Guest on my C6 Desktop and use graphical Virt-Manager to setup new Guests. But, from that same Virt-Manager I am connected to my C5 server with C5 KVM Guest, and I can add new systems and manage existing ones.

3. Are you talking about actual VGD graphic card on the Barebone server

(KVM Host)? If yes, do you know what type of Graphics card you have? ELRepo repository (www.elrepo.org) has newer drivers for ATI nVidia and Inter graphic cards.

--

Ljubomir Ljubojevic (Love is in the Air) PL Computers Serbia, Europe

Google is the Mother, Google is the Father, and traceroute is your trusty Spiderman... StarOS, Mikrotik and CentOS/RHEL/Linux consultant _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

As others have pointed out, a GUI is unnecessary and also a bad idea on a KVM server.

You'll want to have an account remote into the KVM server that isn't root. Use PolicyKit to add a group or user to have rights to control libvirt. Then you can either run virt-manager on a Linux desktop to connect to KVM, or use X11 forwarding via SSH to view the server's virt-manager remotely, which still won't require a desktop environment to be installed. I have the process and details documented here, http://itscblog.tamu.edu/startup-guide-for-kvm-on-centos-6/.

Hope that helps, - Trey

On Thu, 13 Oct 2011, Bob Hoffman wrote:

After a month of fighting this and finally figuring it out, kinda bummed I cannot resolve it. I have no choice but to buy a temporary card, lose access to IPMI due to second card, and just hope they get out 6.1 sometime soon.

Can you not just pull that package from SL 6.1, or rebuild the SRPM from Redhat?

jh

Lamar owen wrote ============================

What kind of guests are you installing? ...... The upstream Beta 6.2 docs may have s...... ==================================

It took a long time, but I finally think I got it working. I found a way to bootup to a pretty minimal set up, command line I found a very minimal desktop install setup that does not boot up. I just startx, have a small desktop to do installs, then just close the desktop. Perfect for local installs (everyone who keeps talking about remote installs missed my point...I wanted to do local, same computer)

this still needs some testing, but it really works great with early testing. Now I can protect my host by killing all ports coming in, including ssh, and take care of the guests, guest installs, from the ipmi card.

what a bear that was...that dang video card issue really made it hard.

will post a vid for what I did.