Zen Troubles - Unable to Install Guest OS

[MikeH30]

I get the following error when attempting to install a SLES11 guest on a SLES11 host with ZEN.

"Cannot open kernal image vmlinuz".

I am not sure if I captured the error message verbatim because the VNC window closed after the guest OS rebooted during installation.

Here are my steps.

1. I installed SLES11 as physical machine and selected Zen Server in software option. I followed the instructions from Novell exactly
(Novell Documentation).

2. Boot into Zen after SLES 11 install.

3. Create virtual machines with Zen Virtual Machine creation utility.

Step 3 is where I get stuck. I have no trouble beginning the installation of the SLES11 guest. The installation of the guest takes place in a VNC window and I watch the familiar installation screen of SLES 11. When the install goes for the initial reboot, it is at this point that I see the error message in the console of the guest OS "Cannot open kernal image vmlinuz" and then the VNC window goes away and the installation never completes. I cannot get past this point and I am puzzled as to why I am getting this kernel error.

SLES11 installs with no trouble as a host. Zen installs without trouble as it is a boot option on the menu and I am able to run the Zen virtual machine creation utility. But installing the guest OS never completes.

I am using a Dell Dimension Desktop E310 that is a Pentium 4 processor with 2 GB of RAM. This meets the hardware requirements of ZEN. I am puzzled. Please advise.

Thanks.

-Mike

[MikeH30]

Solved! (Well kinda).

If I do not run the SLES11 updates during initial physical machine install, XEN works properly and I am able to configure a Xen virtual guest machine. One thing is interesting at the boot screen. The letters "pae" are present next to the kernel option boot choice ( not the Xen option) .

On the contrary, in a seperate test scenario, when I installed all SLES 11 updates on the physial host machine during initial install (and before installing a Xen guest), I did not see the letters "pae" next to the non Zen kernal boot option after the physical OS was finished with installation. Althogh, YaST still shows "kernel-pae" as installed.

There must be some kind of kernel update bug.

-Mike

[MikeH30]

There is definitely something goofy with SLES 11 updates that affects intalling guests on a ZEN host. I run the updates via YaST "Online Update."

I successfully installed Zen on SLES11 host and then installed a SLES11 guest ( skipping host machine updates). After verifying guest was running, I went back and ran the updates that I skipped from initial installation on host. After updates were complete I rebooted and verifed the guest was functional - it was. Next I attempted to install a second guest and came across same troubles from my original forum thread - guest install would not finish. I rebooted host and then saw guest listetd in VM manager console. When trying to start second guest I get this POST error:

Error starting domain: POST operation failed: xend_post: error from xen daemon: (xend.err 'Kernel image does not exist: /tmp/kernel.Skp0MA')

Here are the details:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/engine.py", line 485, in run_domain
vm.startup()
File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/domain.py", line 379, in startup
self.vm.create()
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/libvirt.py", line 262, in create
if ret == -1: raise libvirtError ('virDomainCreate() failed', dom=self)
libvirtError: POST operation failed: xend_post: error from xen daemon: (xend.err 'Kernel image does not exist: /tmp/kernel.Skp0MA')

My goal is to install two SLES11 guests on a SLES11 host. One guest for low traffice web site and second guest to use as remote back up for another physical server.

Can anyone guess why I am having these "kernel" issues? Is it time for me to try VMware Server 2?

Thanks,

Mike

[MikeH30]

I installed VMWare Server 2 today on a SLES 11 host. All my troubles in this Zen thread are now gone. I had no trouble installing a guest SLES11 like I did with ZEN (mentioned in above threads). Everthing just went smoothly with VMware Server. My virtual web server is now up and running.

I am very surprised that ZEN was so much trouble considering it is packaged with SLES11.

-Mike