OVM3 Guest PXE Boot goes into infinite install loop

Question

Hello Avi,
When I create a PVM guest, using OVM Manager 3.0.3, within the network path I pass something similar to the following:
--args="ksdevice=eth0 network ks=http://<your_KS_server>/<path>/ks.cfg" http://<my_iso_server>/mounted_isos/OL5/
This works just fine, the VM pops up it finds the ks.cfg and does the install. However, on the reboot it goes right back to this PXE install and continues to do this in an infinite loop. I tried changing the bootloader from /usr/bin/xenpvboot to /usr/bin/pygrub, but if I do that it just gives Error: Boot Loader didn't return any data!. I also tried removing the bootargs and leaving it as bootargs='' and that also didn't work, same error.
Obviously the continuous rebooting into PXE and reinstalling is a bug, but how can I fix the vm.cfg file manually?
Thanks,
Roger

Answer 1

NOTE: This is for a PVM Guest.
ok, I solved my own problem but it's ugly.
Due to the infinite rebooting into the pxe installer, once the installer is done, I had to make sure on the reboot I turned it off before it goes back to the PXE. Once done I had to make modifications to the current vm.cfg. These are the parameters that you must modify:
bootloader = '/usr/bin/xenpvboot'
boot = 'n'
bootargs = ''--args="ksdevice=eth0 network ks=http://<your_KS_server>/<path>/ks.cfg" http://<my_iso_server>/mounted_isos/OL5/
Comment out the above and modify the bootloader line on the vm.cfg as follows:
bootloader = '/usr/bin/pygrub'
Side NOTE: Make sure your ks.cfg file installs kernel-xen and subtract kernel (-kernel) within your ks.cfg. Otherwise by default it will try and boot into the non xen kernel for a PVM and you get an invalid kernel error similar to this Error: (2, 'Invalid kernel', 'xc_dom_parse_elf_kernel: ELF image has no shstrtab\n')
Hope that helps someone out,
Roger
Edited by: Roger on Jan 19, 2012 12:36 PM