The following should boot from the specified --cdrom object during installation, then set the boot device list to only the HD after installation: $ virt-install --name something --memory 1024 --boot hd --cdrom=some.iso --disk size=10 Instead, it tries to boot from the new/blank HD image and fails. In ~/.cache/virt-manager/virt-manager.log, the following appears: Generated install XML: .... <boot dev="hd"/> .... Generated boot XML: .... <boot dev="hd"/> The man page for virt-install states: --boot BOOTOPTS Optionally specify the post-install VM boot configuration. Removing the --boot hd option results in <boot dev="cdrom"> and <boot dev="hd"> entries in the install XML section, and only a <boot dev="hd"> entry in the boot XML section, and installation is successful. Though this workaround would work for this simple case, it would appear to prevent the specification of any other post-install boot list that doesn't include cdrom. I believe this is a relatively new bug in virt-install, as I have some installation records from using virt-install under Fedora 24 that include (successful) VM creation using a combination of --cdrom=some.iso and --boot hd
Thanks for the report. Indeed it shouldn't work like that but looks like it's been broken since v1.0.0! Anyway, it's fixed upstream now commit ff3b4dc5b0b21393dbccc0f5f691b17bf1a761bd Author: Cole Robinson <crobinso> Date: Tue Apr 4 18:22:15 2017 -0400 cli: Don't overwrite install bootorder with manual --boot (bz 1438946) --boot should be for post-install bootorder only https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1438946 Note for that particular command line, if you drop the --boot argument it will give you the desired result (first boot=cdrom, permanent boot=disk)