Mailing List Archive

Debian 11 guest installer crash and reboot
Hi all,

Tried to install Debian 11 guest using netinst, but the installer
crashed and reboot automatically.

Host: Xen 4.11.4 on Debian 10
Guest: Debian 11 (kernel 5.10)

Here is the steps to reproduce the problem:-
1) Either guest BIOS or OVMF boot
2) Select "Expert install" on installation menu

Then, the guest crashed and reboot.

Any idea why newer Debian 11 failed to install as guest ?

Thanks a lot.

John Mok
Re: Debian 11 guest installer crash and reboot [ In reply to ]
Hello,

On Mon, Aug 16, 2021 at 02:00:06PM +0800, John Mok wrote:
> Host: Xen 4.11.4 on Debian 10
> Guest: Debian 11 (kernel 5.10)
>
> Here is the steps to reproduce the problem:-
> 1) Either guest BIOS or OVMF boot
> 2) Select "Expert install" on installation menu

I'm having no problems booting the installer and installing a Debian
11 guest in PVH mode, so I assume this must be HVM mode, which I
have not tried. That is with Xen 4.14.2 though.

4.11 is EOL now so neither Debian nor Xen is likely going to be able
to help you with that. You should try installing a more up to date
hypervisor version and trying again.

https://xenbits.xen.org/docs/unstable/support-matrix.html

If it still happens with a supproted hypervisor version then Xen
devs are probably going to want to see debug output from dom0 and
domU, so booting dom0 with "log_lvl=all guest_loglvl=all" on the
hypervisor command line and starting with "xl -v create -f
guest.cfg" would be a good idea.

Cheers,
Andy
Re: Debian 11 guest installer crash and reboot [ In reply to ]
Hi Andy,

I'm having possibly the same issue as John (installing Debian 11 via
netinst in HVM mode crashes). I'm having no problems booting the
installer in PVH mode like you, however, would I be correct in saying
HVM mode is necessary for PCI passthrough?

Host 1: Ubuntu 20.04.02 LTS / Xen 4.14.3 (compiled from source)
Host 2: Debian 11 / Xen 4.14.3 (installed via apt)

Attaching a serial console to the guest (via xl console) on both hosts
and booting the installer kernel with console=ttyS0,115200n8 manifests
a 'kernel panic - not syncing' error.

[ XX.XXXXXX] Run /init as init process
[ XX.XXXXXX] synth uevent: /devices/virtual/input/input1: failed to
send uevent
[ XX.XXXXXX] input input1: uevent: failed to send synthetic uevent
Failed to write 'add' to '/sys/devices/virtual/input/input1/uevent':
Cannot allocate memory
[ XX.XXXXXX] SCSI subsystem initialized
[ XX.XXXXXX] Invalid max_queues (4), will use default max: 1.
[ XX.XXXXXX] Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!
exitcode=0x00000100
[ XX.XXXXXX] CPU: 0 PID: 1 Comm: init Not tainted 5.10.0-8-amd64 #1
Debian 5.10.46-3
[ XX.XXXXXX] Hardware name: Xen HVM domU, BIOS 4.14.3-pre 07/30/2021

The linked Debian bug report below (if in fact relevant) appears to
suggest an upstream issue regarding udevadm and the Xen Virtual
Keyboard driver?

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=983357

C

On Mon, 16 Aug 2021 at 17:48, Andy Smith <andy@strugglers.net> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> On Mon, Aug 16, 2021 at 02:00:06PM +0800, John Mok wrote:
> > Host: Xen 4.11.4 on Debian 10
> > Guest: Debian 11 (kernel 5.10)
> >
> > Here is the steps to reproduce the problem:-
> > 1) Either guest BIOS or OVMF boot
> > 2) Select "Expert install" on installation menu
>
> I'm having no problems booting the installer and installing a Debian
> 11 guest in PVH mode, so I assume this must be HVM mode, which I
> have not tried. That is with Xen 4.14.2 though.
>
> 4.11 is EOL now so neither Debian nor Xen is likely going to be able
> to help you with that. You should try installing a more up to date
> hypervisor version and trying again.
>
> https://xenbits.xen.org/docs/unstable/support-matrix.html
>
> If it still happens with a supproted hypervisor version then Xen
> devs are probably going to want to see debug output from dom0 and
> domU, so booting dom0 with "log_lvl=all guest_loglvl=all" on the
> hypervisor command line and starting with "xl -v create -f
> guest.cfg" would be a good idea.
>
> Cheers,
> Andy
>