Description of problem: After updating a virtual machine I couldn't restart it with "xm create", it searched for a (now non-existent) old version of the kernel and initrd. I found that something or someone wrote a menu.lst that wasn't a symlink to grub.conf, i.e. its contents didn't change when the kernel was updated. pygrub read that menu.lst instead of the (correct) grub.conf and failed to start the guest. I've attached a patch to pygrub that lets it check grub.conf before menu.lst which should fix this problem. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): xen-3.0.3-25.0.3.el5
Created attachment 151210 [details] patch to let pygrub check for grub.conf before checking for menu.lst
And then you could have the problem the other way. This is the unfortunate problem with the difference in grub config naming between distros.
If we use grub.conf in one place and prefer menu.lst in another, we're not consistent with ourselves. Don't you think pygrub should (if in doubt) use what we use elsewhere? The way it is, we support other distros better than we support RHEL as a guest, which is more than unfortunate. AFAIK other distros don't have both a grub.conf and a menu.lst, so the patch aboive shouldn't cause problems with them. The least we should do (if we are going out of our way to support other distros better than our own) is warn people about the circumstance that there are both a grub.conf and a menu.lst file and which one we used.
The real 'grub' package in RHEL-5 has a patch grub-0.93-configfile.patch which removes its use of menu.lst in favour of grub.conf. pygrub needs to behave in the same way, and not look at menu.lst so we are at least consistent within RHEL-5.
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux maintenance release. Product Management has requested further review of this request by Red Hat Engineering, for potential inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Update release for currently deployed products. This request is not yet committed for inclusion in an Update release.
Created attachment 311468 [details] Actual patch posted for inclusion
Built into xen-3.0.3-67.el5
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on therefore solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2009-0118.html