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

[Pasi Kärkkäinen]

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 06:04:06PM +0200, Bernhard Gschaider wrote:
> 
> >>>>> 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. 
> 

Are you running 32bit or 64bit Xen host/dom0? 

XFS is known to have problems on 32bit kernels, while it should work on
64bit kernels. (this is even without Xen).

-- Pasi

> 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
> 
> 
> -- 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> DI Bernhard F.W. Gschaider
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> EMail: 	Bernhard.Gschaider at ice-sf.at
> WWW  : www.ice-sf.at
> Jabber : bgschaid at jabber.org
> Tel:	+43(3842)98282-42	Fax:	+43(3842)98282-02
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------



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