[ILUG] Xen, Debian on DELL PowerEdge 2850[Scanned]

[Cormac McClean]

Hi,

I teach a course in Linux System Administration. Each year I set up 
multiple virtual servers so that
students can have root access to their own system to learn essential skills.

This year I have been provided with a DELL PowerEdge 2850 server, 
replacing older hardware
which wasn't up to the job. I'm now trying to setup Xen on Debian (Sarge).

However, I am running into serious problems, which I believe are due to 
the SATA hard drives in the DELL.
For example, the standard Debian install iso will not work - it doesn't 
recognise the hard drives.
I have had to use custom built isos (e.g. from 
http://blog.blackdown.de/2005/06/26/debian-installer-with-kernel-2611/) 
to install a basic Debian system.

I have built a xen-patched kernel (as described in 
http://julien.danjou.info/xen.html) configured to include SCSI_SATA and 
SCSI_ATA_PIIX (which Googling has led me to believe might solve the 
problem), and added the appropriate lines to my grub/menu.lst:
title Xen 3.0 / XenLinux 2.6
kernel /boot/xen-3.0-i386.gz
module /boot/xenu-linux-2.6.16.19-xen root=/dev/sda1 ro


However, when I reboot into the Xen system (dom0), I get a Kernel Panic 
with a message saying that hd0,0 or /dev/sda1 is not a valid device. The 
machine reboots immediately before I get a chance to investigate further.

I tried the most up to date kernel (2.6.18) but the xen patch won't work 
with this, and it doesn't include support for xen.
I can't use the xen binaries (http://www.xensource.com/xen/downloads/) 
either.

This is day 3 trying different approaches and googling and trying again.
Can anyone shed any light, please? Has anyone solved a similar problem?

I'd prefer not to have to go back to UML.

Thanks in advance,
Cormac.

-- 
Cormac McClean.
Lecturer, Athlone IT Software Engineering
Free/Open Source Software Enthusiast

Please avoid sending me Microsoft Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html


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