Ubuntu
linux package

Installing In Xen Paravirtualized Guest Fails To Load xen-netfront

Bug #777311 reported by Michael MacLeod on 2011-05-04

This bug affects 6 people

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	linux (Ubuntu)	Confirmed	Undecided	Unassigned

Bug Description

When attempting to do a netboot install of 11.04 in a paravirtualized Xen domU, the xen-netfront kernel module is not loaded by default. It has to be loaded manually during the install process and the 'detect network cards' part of the install re-run before proceeding.

Additionally, after install is complete the new domU will fail to boot properly, because the xen-blkfront kernel module is not loaded by default. This has to be done manually, and xen-blkfront added to /etc/initramfs-tools/modules and update-initramfs -u run. After this, the domU will work as expected.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: linux-image-2.6.38-8-generic 2.6.38-8.42
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic x86_64
AlsaDevices:
total 0
crw------- 1 root root 116, 1 2011-05-04 13:45 seq
crw------- 1 root root 116, 33 2011-05-04 13:45 timer
AplayDevices: aplay: device_list:240: no soundcards found...
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices: arecord: device_list:240: no soundcards found...
Date: Wed May 4 14:09:04 2011
Lspci:

Lsusb: Error: command ['lsusb'] failed with exit code 1:
ProcEnviron:
LANGUAGE=en_CA:en
LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: root=UUID=51eb09f2-5766-4bdd-9936-9f07fcca7c5a ro console=hvc0 splash quiet vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: linux
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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Revision history for this message

Michael MacLeod (mikemacleod) wrote on 2011-05-04:

BootDmesg.txt Edit (15.2 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
CurrentDmesg.txt Edit (1.1 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
Dependencies.txt Edit (1.9 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
ProcCpuinfo.txt Edit (1.0 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
ProcCpuinfo_.txt Edit (1.0 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
ProcInterrupts.txt Edit (1.6 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
ProcModules.txt Edit (500 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
UdevDb.txt Edit (38.1 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
UdevLog.txt Edit (86.7 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")

Revision history for this message

Alex (a-j-conrey) wrote on 2011-06-12:

ubuntu-1104-xen-domu-networking.patch Edit (189 bytes, text/plain)

A fix to this is to patch (with the attached patch) the /etc/modules.conf file in the initrd image to include the module.

Revision history for this message

Alex L. Demidov (alexeydemidov) wrote on 2011-06-13:

I've tried patching /etc/modules.conf myself with no success.

Revision history for this message

Christian Reis (kiko) wrote on 2011-07-07:

I don't actually have an /etc/modules.conf file in my Natty box, but I think what you would need to do is change /etc/initramfs-tools/modules to specify xen_netfront and xen_blkfront.

Revision history for this message

Christian Reis (kiko) wrote on 2011-07-07:

I'm trying to understand what changed between 2.6.35 and 2.6.38 to cause this problem; the initramfs images I have seem to both at least include the module, so I'm not quite sure what's up.

Revision history for this message

Alex L. Demidov (alexeydemidov) wrote on 2011-07-07:

Chrisitian, /etc/modules.conf is present on Natty xen netboot initrd[1]

[1]: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/natty/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/xen/initrd.gz

Revision history for this message

Brad Figg (brad-figg) wrote on 2011-07-18: Missing required logs.

This bug is missing log files that will aid in dianosing the problem. From a terminal window please run:

apport-collect 777311

and then change the status of the bug back to 'New'.

If, due to the nature of the issue you have encountered, you are unable to run this command, please add a comment stating that fact and change the bug status to 'Confirmed'.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

Changed in linux (Ubuntu):
status:	New → Incomplete

Revision history for this message

Michael MacLeod (mikemacleod) wrote on 2011-07-19:

While possible to collect kernel logs, I don't really see how they're relavent. The problem, and solution, is described above. The only work still remaining is to apply the solution to the generated ISO, so that the workaround is unnecessary.

Also, I've got all my VMs up and running and don't have a whole lot of free RAM available to light up another test machine at the moment.