Forwarding to libvir-list ... Rich. ----- Forwarded message from Daniel Janzon <daniel.janzon@edgeware.tv> ----- Subject: Re: [virt-tools-list] Lilo succeeds with kvm but not virt-manager Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2010 10:56:29 +0200 From: Daniel Janzon <> To: virt-tools-list On 06/05/2010 06:00 PM, virt-tools-list-request@redhat.com wrote:

Message: 1 Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2010 17:55:17 +0100 From: "Richard W.M. Jones"<rjones@redhat.com> To: Daniel Janzon<daniel.janzon@edgeware.tv> Cc: virt-tools-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: [virt-tools-list] Lilo bootloader succeeds with kvm but not virt-manager Message-ID:<20100604165517.GA4612@amd.home.annexia.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Fri, Jun 04, 2010 at 02:03:12PM +0200, Daniel Janzon wrote:

...

I installed Linux Suse as a guest in virt-manager/KVM and had trouble to install grub. So I used good old Lilo instead. When running Suse in virt-manager Lilo fails with

LILO - Keytable read/checksum error on bootup

When I go

kvm -m 512 -hda SLES-10.3.img

libvirt won't have such a simple command line. There could be other KVM options which affect things at boot.

I have a couple of suggestions:

(1) Find out the full libvirt command line. Easiest is to start the domain under virt-manager and quickly use the 'ps ax' command. (There is a more "official" way to convert libvirt XML into a qemu command line but I cannot recall what that is at the moment).

Smart! I did that and found out that it is the boot=on drive option that is the cause of the problem: -drive file=/root/SLES-10.3.img,if=ide,index=0,boot=on For some reason it only works when it is set to boot=off. I tried <boot>off</boot> and boot="off" in the target tag in the corresponding disk tag in the XML file, but with no luck. I also tried to remove the <boot dev='hd'/> from the os tag. I did do a "/etc/init.d/libvirt-bin reload" just in case. Is there any way to get control the boot option from the XML file?

(2) Use virt-rescue or guestfish and see if you can install grub in the domain. In guestfish it'd be something like this:

guestfish -i GuestName

...

<fs> mkdir-p /boot/grub <fs> grub-install /boot /dev/sda1

(You might need to change those command slightly and read the man page for virt-rescue, guestfish and/or grub-install).

Ok, thanks for the tip. I will consider it if it impossible to control the boot option as explained above. Or maybe I'll just settle with being annoyed and start the machine from the command line :) All the best, Daniel Janzon _______________________________________________ virt-tools-list mailing list virt-tools-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/virt-tools-list ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones libguestfs lets you edit virtual machines. Supports shell scripting, bindings from many languages. http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/libguestfs/ See what it can do: http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/libguestfs/recipes.html