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

[Daniel Pocock]

On 08/03/13 19:52, Thomas Goirand wrote:
> 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 agree it's not exclusively an XCP issue.

>> - 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.
>
>   

I did search for that, I found various other boot options appear many
times in the search results, but nothing about expert mode.

>> - 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?
>
>   
As it is not in expert mode, the menu isn't easily accessible but I
think I can get back to the main menu by canceling the mirror setup
completely.

This IPv6/DHCP issue is not likely to be an XCP issue itself, although
the problems with virtual console make it more awkward to troubleshoot.

>> - 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.
>
>   

I did see that in the README, and I did try it, but it gives an error
when trying to shrink a VDI, it only supports enlarging the VDI.