I ran into an issue when trying to create VMs in CentOS 5.5 with VLANs. My setup is as follows:

-CentOS 5.5 x64 xen kernel -LVM for storage -Kickstart file hosted on apache in /var/www/html/ -VM start file in /etc/xen/ -VLAN100 interface with public IP, VLAN200 interface with private IP

My vm start file is as follows:

kernel = "/boot/vm-inst/vmlinuz" ramdisk = "/boot/vm-inst/initrd.img" name = "vm1-inst" memory = 1000 disk = [ 'phy:/dev/VolGroup01/vm01,xvda,w', ] vif = ['bridge=virbr0', ] vcpus = 1 ip = '172.16.1.100' netmask = '255.255.255.0' gateway = '172.16.1.1' extra = "text ks=http://172.16.1.155/vm-inst1-ks.cfg ip=172.16.1.100 netmask=255.255.255.0 gateway=172.16.1.1 dns=172.16.1.200"

To start the install I run: xm create -c vm1-inst

The CentOS installer finds the kernel and ramdisk files, configures the IP, then hangs for a while until it states it cannot find the kickstart file.

I have to then have to exit the console and shutdown the vm

To remove any issues with the kickstart file, I tried just using vm-install --prompt to create the VM and pointing to a FTP site with the install files. The CentOS installer starts, I configure the IP using a static IP, but then the it complains it cannot find any files in the FTP site.

Finally, I tried using the CentOS DVD ISO as the install media for the VM. The installer starts, but then complains it does not have the drivers to load the media. I googled and found this is a limitation of CentOS when creating VMs.

Has anyone had experience getting the installer over VLANs to work with a network install? Is there another way around this issue?

Thanks and Regards, Jared