Re: Debian 11 installer crashed and reboot
On 8/16/2021 1:40 PM, Chuck Zmudzinski wrote:
On 8/16/2021 12:49 PM, Chuck Zmudzinski wrote:
On 8/16/2021 4:25 AM, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
On Mon, Aug 16, 2021 at 02:30:33PM +0800, John Mok wrote:
Hi all,
Tried to install Debian 11 guest using netinst, but the installer
crashed and reboot automatically.
Host: Xen 4.11.4 on Debian 10
Guest: Debian 11 (kernel 5.10)
Here is the steps to reproduce the problem:-
1) Either guest BIOS or OVMF boot
2) Select "Expert install" on installation menu
Then, the guest crashed and reboot.
Another try with the installer on Debian Live 11, it immediately
crashed and reboot.
Is it a installer bug or something ?
Thanks a lot.
John Mok
I think people would need many more details as to exactly what
happens and
when it reboots.
So: You boot the installer - from just a .iso file / from the .iso
flashed
to a USB? Can you show what works and at what point it fails?
The quick suggestion would be that it's something to do with Xen
hypervisor
but I'm not in any better position than to guess, since I don't use
Xen here.
I do know that none of the tests the media team do involve booting
on Xen:
in most cases we prefer to run on real hardware. Occasionally, some
of the
tests have to be run on KVM/QEMU. Xen as DomU is untested then.
All the very best, as ever,
Andy Cater
I can say bullseye runs fine as a Xen DomU on both the buster xen-4.11
hypervisor and the bullseye xen-4.14 hypervisor on my workstation, with
either BIOS or OVMF boot, but mine is a bullseye image upgraded from
buster several months ago. I have not tried the bullseye debian
installer
on the xen hypervisor. Maybe for installing bullseye on xen you can try
installing buster first then upgrade it to bullseye if the debian
bullseye
installer does not work on the xen hypervisor.
Chuck Zmudzinski
I would also ask if you have successfully booted another linux distro
(an earlier Debian or another distribution such as ubuntu) on your
Debian 10 xen-4.11.4 hypervisor. If not, the problem may be with your
xen configuration files on your Debian 10 host system, not with the
Debian 11 installer. Maybe some tweaks to the DomU xl.cfg configuration
file for your Debian 11 DomU or to the xen hypervisor boot options
(usually set in /etc/default/grub) might get it working.
Chuck Zmudzinski
I tested the debian-11.0.0-amd64-netinst.iso image on my Debian 10
xen-4.11.4 hypervisor using both OVMF and BIOS boot using an HVM
type Xen guest, and in both cases, I can confirm the same behavior as
the OP: crash and restart after selecting any of the installation options
from the grub menu that is displayed after booting. Nevertheless, a
full installation of Debian 11 boots and runs fine in the same environment
under Xen.
Browsing the files in the iso image, I can see there is a folder for xen:
/install.amd/xen with three files in it: vmlinuz, initrd.gz, and debian.cfg.
However, these files in the xen folder are never referenced anywhere from
the menu or submenu items in the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file on the iso image.
So a workaround would be to create an iso image with a menu entry in the
/boot/grub/grub.cfg file for an installation on xen, and that grub menu item
would be configured to load the vmlinuz kernel and initrd.gz image in the
/install.amd/xen directory.
It might also be possible to escape to the grub command shell
instead of selecting one of the installation options after booting and
manually enter the commands to load the xen-enabled kernel and initrd.gz
images in the /install.amd/xen folder on the netinst iso, but that is not
very user friendly, and I am not even sure if those images are mainly for
a PV type Xen guest rather that an HVM type Xen guest that really should
not need a special kernel or initrd image, but I could be wrong about that.
Also, the debian.cfg file in /install.amd/xen mentions the need to use an
iso image that supports installation under xen, and it references things
like multi-arch iso images which I don't think exist anymore in modern
Debian. Anyway, I suggest the OP read this debian.cfg file and try using
the suggestions there to get the debian 11 installer running under xen.
To summarize, I do not think the Debian installer is designed for easy
installation under Xen, and it is not clear exactly which iso is needed,
nor is it
clear which type of Xen guest should be configured (PV or HVM) to enable
installation of Debian 11 under Xen.
Chuck Zmudzinski
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