WelcomeWelcome | FAQFAQ | DownloadsDownloads | WikiWiki

Author Topic: Netbooting TCL with Xen Dom0  (Read 3513 times)

Offline hookenz

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 8
Netbooting TCL with Xen Dom0
« on: April 02, 2012, 01:25:02 PM »
Let me start by just saying, what a fantastic effort TCL is! well done.

What I'm wanting to do is use TCL as the basis for PXE booting a TCL based Xen Dom0.

The boot process I'm using is the multiboot mboot.c32 module from the syslinux project 
see: syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Mboot.c32

However, where I'm a little unstuck is installing a custom kernel.

Unfortunately the version of the kernel source 3.0.21 that is provided does not yet have all the Xen modules that I'm requiring.  These are in Jeremy's pvops kernel branch 2.6.32.x though and because it's better tested for my config I want to have TCL running with the older kernel as a dom0.

So what I have started to do is customize the core iso by doing something pretty similar to the remastering link.  It actually starts to boot up but part way through the process the machine resets and I cannot see why.
I did copy all the modules and config files from a pre-built kernel to /lib/modules/2.6.32.50

It did a little more reading and found the custom kernel link in the TCL wiki
Which suggests there are some patches applied to the kernel source for TCL.  But, those are against the newer 3.x kernel.  Are those patches going to need to be backported to my 2.6 kernel?

I guess I should step back for a moment and just ask, am I going about this the right way? 
Should I be starting with the latest version 4 TCL, or perhaps using an older version 3 which would have a version 2.6 kernel to start with?

Thanks.

Offline hookenz

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 8
Re: Netbooting TCL with Xen Dom0
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2012, 06:43:19 PM »
I got a little further on this.  Without any of the patches from the alternate kernels applied as yet I have it getting as far as attempting to mount the initrd image I created.

What I want to do is mount that filesystem and keep it there.  So my pxe default file looks like:

LABEL tinyxen
  KERNEL mboot.c32
  APPEND /images/xen-4.1.2.gz noreboot --- /images/vmlinuz-2.6.32.50-xen noswap embed console=tty0 ro root=/dev/ram0 --- /images/tinyxen.img


But, what I get is:
  No filesystem could mount root, tried: ext3 ext2 ext4 fuseblk
  Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount fs on unknown block(1,0)

Am I missing a kernel module to support the ram disk?


Offline curaga

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10957
Re: Netbooting TCL with Xen Dom0
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2012, 11:46:43 PM »
TC 4 is not going to run with a kernel that old. Both udev and glibc require something newer, IIRC. TC 3 might.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xen
says 3.0 has the required support to run as dom0. It might be easiest for you to start from our config and enable what you need.
The only barriers that can stop you are the ones you create yourself.

Offline hookenz

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 8
Re: Netbooting TCL with Xen Dom0
« Reply #3 on: April 03, 2012, 12:49:26 AM »
Thanks curaga.

I'll try one of those suggestions.

Offline hookenz

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 8
Re: Netbooting TCL with Xen Dom0
« Reply #4 on: April 03, 2012, 11:30:39 PM »
And just to fill in for anyone who is curious.

Yes, the 2.6.32 kernels do work with the older 3.x series, even the newest of the version 3 TCL.