Current-Users archive

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index][Old Index]

Re: Problemns after updating from 6.1.4 to 6.1.5



On Sun, 19 Oct 2014, John Nemeth wrote:
On Oct 20,  6:38am, Paul Goyette wrote:
} On Sun, 19 Oct 2014, John Nemeth wrote:
}
} > } * I have to load the kernel from an external partition using grub, and
} > }    thus have to edit grub's menu.lst config file!
} > }
} > } * The booted kernel is independent of what is in /netbsd, so I currently
} > }    have to manually gunzip(1) the kernel on the external partition and
} > }    put the results in /netbsd
} >
} >     Why would you be using grub when you're keeping the kernel
} > outside the NetBSD partition.  All you need to do is add:
} >
} > kernel = "<path to kernel>"
} >
} > to your domU config.  xentools is fully capable of loading a NetBSD
} > kernel, including one that is gzipped.  An example from one of my
} > config files is:
} >
} > kernel = "/usr/pkg/etc/xen/kernels/netbsd-7-XEN3_DOMU.gz"
} >
} > This is not something that should be dependent on your dom0 as
} > xentools is supplied by the Xen project.
}
} Most likely, I don't know enough (approx zero) of the XEN environment to
} get it right.  I'm just following the explicit instructions from my DOM0
} provider.

    So, you're using a VPS.  This can change everything depending
on how they do things.  Which raises the question, who is the
provider?

} As a quick summary, I initially boot up a "common" DOMU which runs some
} variant of Linux.  A customer-specific very small ext2fs partition is
} mounted (based on my login information) on which I put my grub menu.lst
} file and the kernel(s) I need to boot.  This partition is accessible

    This tells me that they are most likely using pygrub or pvgrub.
Basically these things dig around in the image for the domU to find
a grub config file, which then tells p[yv]grub what needs to be
extracted (i.e. it will copy the kernel {and initramhd for linux}
out of the image and hand it to Xen).  This also tells me that in
your case, the menu.lst thing is necessary.

A couple of notes on how this relates to XenServer (and perhaps other xapi-based providers) - more for the record rather than necessarily of immediate relevance: - if loading a kernel from the dom0, it has to be in a very specific location otherwise you get annoyingly vague errors

- pygrub does not need menu.lst if the kernel path is set in the VM properties:
                     PV-kernel ( RW):
                    PV-ramdisk ( RW):
                       PV-args ( RW):
                PV-legacy-args ( RW):
                 PV-bootloader ( RW): pygrub
            PV-bootloader-args ( RW): --kernel=/netbsd

- pygrub does not need a MBR partition table, it will deal with just a disklabel with root starting at 0. However, if you've had an MBR partition on there in the past, ensure you wipe sector zero, not just the partition table otherwise it will spot the 0xaa55 signature and insist on reading the non-existent MBR leading to a "No partition" bot failure.

--
Stephen


Home | Main Index | Thread Index | Old Index