[CentOS-virt] new install of Xen 4.6 hangs on Loading initial ramdisk

[Pasi Kärkkäinen]

On Fri, Nov 27, 2015 at 06:18:05PM -0500, Craig Thompson wrote:
>    First post to this list.  I would appreciate some help on this issue.
>    As background, I installed CentOS 7 on a Dell server, and then ran the
>    following commands:
>    yum update
>    [1]http://buildlogs.centos.org/centos/7/virt/x86_64/xen/centos-release-xen-7-11.el7.x86_64.rpm
>    yum --enablerepo=centos-virt-xen-testing update
>    yum --enablerepo=centos-virt-xen-testing install xen
>    Doing that, I was able to successfully install Xen, create a virtual
>    machine with its own HVM setup, logical volume, etc. and boot it just
>    fine.
>    I then tried to do the same on an IBM x3550 server I*m trying to install
>    with CentOS 7.  The CentOS 7 install went just fine.  I can boot into the
>    standard kernel and have a working machine.  But after running the
>    commands above to install the Xen hypervisor, the machine hangs on boot
>    for a few moments after displaying the lines below and then reboots in a
>    loop over and over and over:
>    Loading Xen 4.6.0-2.el7 *
>    Loading Linux 3.18.21-16.el7.x86_64 *
>    Loading initial ramdisk *
>    It never gets beyond that.  
>

Weird. So you don't see any output from Xen? 

I guess that means GRUB gets stuck somehow, and doesn't even get to actually starting Xen..


> If I choose the stock kernel (no Xen) from the
>    Grub menu, it will continue to boot into that just fine.
>    My grub.cfg file has these entries of note:
>     multiboot         /xen-4.6.0-2.el7.gz placeholder
>    dom0_mem=1024M,max:1024M cpuinfo com1=115200,8n1 console=com1,tty
>    loglvl=all guest_loglvl=all ${xen_rm_opts}
>            echo    'Loading Linux 3.18.21-16.el7.x86_64 ...'
>            module  /vmlinuz-3.18.21-16.el7.x86_64 placeholder
>    root=UUID=9dc18146-f9b3-41cc-ba9c-7314689abcde ro crashkernel=auto debug
>    irqpoll ipv6.disable=1 console=hvc0 earlyprintk=xen nomodeset
>            echo    'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
>            module  --nounzip   /initramfs-3.18.21-16.el7.x86_64.img
>    What I have tried:
>    1) adding debug into the vmlinuz line
>    2) disabling ipv6 in that line
>    3) adding root=UUID=9dc18146-f9b3-41cc-ba9c-7314689abcde to the last line
>    AFTER /initramfs *.
>    Nothing so far has made any difference.  Obviously the process works, as
>    it works for me just fine on the Dell server.
>    Underlying this machine is a SATA RAID 1 PCI card with two SSD drives
>    attached in a RAID 1 mirror.  Not that that should matter, but I*m
>    including it for reference. As noted previously, it boots into the stock
>    kernel just fine.
>    Any help would be appreciated.
>

Yeah it's not about options to Xen and/or Linux when GRUB fails to boot the entry in the first place.. 

Is this UEFI setup? Or legacy-BIOS? Did you try playing with the BIOS options? 


-- Pasi

>    --
>    Craig Thompson, President
>    Caldwell Global Communications, Inc.
>    423-559-5465
>