Bug 746426

Summary: RFE: rhel5 Xen pygrub: support GPT partitioned domU disks (Fedora 16 default)
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Reporter: Pasi Karkkainen <pasik>
Component: xenAssignee: Xen Maintainance List <xen-maint>
Status: CLOSED DUPLICATE QA Contact: Virtualization Bugs <virt-bugs>
Severity: unspecified Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 5.8CC: leiwang, mrezanin, pbonzini, qguan, qwan, xen-maint
Target Milestone: rcKeywords: FutureFeature
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Hardware: Unspecified   
OS: Unspecified   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Enhancement
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Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2011-10-17 08:43:42 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Pasi Karkkainen 2011-10-15 16:58:13 UTC
Description of problem:
Fedora 16 uses GPT partition table as a default on all new installs. RHEL5 Xen pygrub does not seem to work with GPT disks. I tested with F16 final TC1 PV domU. 

GPT patch for upstream Xen pygrub is available for F16 Xen 4.1.1 in here:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=745335

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
RHEL 5.7 Xen pygrub.

How reproducible:
Always.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install RHEL 5.7 Xen dom0.
2. Use virt-install to install F16 final TC1 or later PV domU.
3. virt-install -d -n f16test32 -r 1024 --vcpus=2 -f /dev/VolGroup00/f16test32 --vnc -p -l "http://server.tld/fedora/mount-f16-final-tc1-i386-iso/"
  
Actual results:
F16 domU installation works OK, but after reboot the domU fails to start due to pygrub error:

ERROR    POST operation failed: xend_post: error from xen daemon: (xend.err "Error creating domain: Boot loader didn't return any data!")

Expected results:
F16 PV domUs with GPT partitioned disks can be booted.

Additional info:

Note that F16 alpha/beta have other bugs that prevent installation as PV domU. F16 final TC1 and later versions do work OK as Xen PV domU.

output from virt-install:

Guest installation complete... restarting guest.
Sat, 15 Oct 2011 19:47:23 ERROR    POST operation failed: xend_post: error from xen daemon: (xend.err "Error creating domain: Boot loader didn't return any data!")
Domain installation may not have been
 successful.  If it was, you can restart your domain
 by running 'virsh start f16test32'; otherwise, please
 restart your installation.
Sat, 15 Oct 2011 19:47:23 ERROR    POST operation failed: xend_post: error from xen daemon: (xend.err "Error creating domain: Boot loader didn't return any data!")
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/sbin/virt-install", line 895, in ?
    main()
  File "/usr/sbin/virt-install", line 777, in main
    dom.create()
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.4/site-packages/libvirt.py", line 333, in create
    if ret == -1: raise libvirtError ('virDomainCreate() failed', dom=self)
libvirtError: POST operation failed: xend_post: error from xen daemon: (xend.err "Error creating domain: Boot loader didn't return any data!")

Comment 1 Pasi Karkkainen 2011-10-15 17:00:30 UTC
Also there's a workaround available in F16 final TC1 and later versions. You can pass "nogpt" boot option for the F16 anaconda installer, which forces creation of old-style MSDOS partition tables instead of new GPT.

Comment 2 Paolo Bonzini 2011-10-17 08:43:42 UTC

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 746602 ***