[Pkg-xen-devel] Bug#702369: latest install report

[Thomas Goirand]

On 03/09/2013 02:35 AM, Daniel Pocock wrote:
> I've made much more progress this time, but there are still outstanding
> issues:
> 
> - neither "xe console" or VNC seems to allow ALT-F[2-6] keystrokes, so I
> can't get other virtual terminals and therefore can't obtain any useful
> log/status messages. This issue alone makes me feel I'm really wasting
> my time as it prevents me doing any serious troubleshooting efficiently.
> 
> - when I connect with "xe console", it doesn't show me the current
> content of the screen, I have to press enter - but that pushes the
> installer to the next menu

This is a problem with Xen, not with XAPI, IMO. Xen doesn't keep a
buffer of the tty1, which is a real annoyance. The problem is the same
with "xm console" and "xl console". But it must be possible to start
your vm into a paused state (I haven't checked, but that might be one of
the options of "xe vm-start", just like with "xm start -p"), attach to
its console, and THEN unpause it. This works well with xend.

> - I still can't get expert mode install, it always seems to go with the
> basic install (unless I do a HVM install like the other day, booting
> from ISO)

I believe that you can use a boot option that can be set.

> - networking is really troublesome, I have to deliberately hit the
> cancel button in both the IPv6 auto-config and DHCP screens, otherwise
> it seems to think it has a valid IPv6 address and doesn't let me put in
> the desired IPv4 address - this is partly speculation though, because
> without the other virtual consoles, I can't really check which address
> it picked up

Well, can't you go into the "Execute a shell" option of d-i to check?

> - I couldn't find any convenient way to override the disk size when
> using the vm-install command, and I have to delete and recreate the VDI,
> this is a pain when scripting

Well, the default HDD size is with the template itself, so the only way
to change the default, is either to change the default template, or make
a new one. Making a new one is basically what you do when you do:

vm=$(xe vm-install template=$template new-name-label=debian)

Then you can resize the HDD:

xe vm-disk-list vm=$vm
xe vdi-resize uuid=<UUID-OF-THE-VDI> disk-size=10GiB

I think that's quite easy, no? This comes directly from the
README.Debian, paragraph 6.2.

> However, my install did succeed, but it gives some errors about "g.e.
> still in use":
> 
> ┌─────────────────────┤ Finishing the installation ├──────────────────────┐
> │ │
> │ 95% │
> │ │
> The system is going down NOW!ystem... │
> Sent SIGTERM to all processes │
> Sent SIGKILL to all
> processes───────────────────────────────────────────────┘
> Requesting system reboot
> [ 1419.728488] WARNING: g.e. still in use!
> [ 1419.728500] WARNING: g.e. still in use!
> [ 1424.673842] Restarting system.

That's a warning, not an error, so I believe it can be ignored.

Cheers,

Thomas