[et-mgmt-tools] virt-manager and pxe install

[Daniel P. Berrange]

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 04:56:06PM +0200, Farkas Levente wrote:
> hi,
> we try again to install a new guest from virt-manager through pxe boot 
> without much success:-(
> out setup:
> - host:
>   - Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600  @ 2.40GHz
>   - Intel S3000AHV
>   - 8GB RAM
>   - CentOS-5.1
>   - kernel-2.6.18-53.1.21.el5 x86_64 64bit
> - packages from http://www.lfarkas.org/linux/packages/centos/5/x86_64/
>   libvirt-0.4.2-5
>   libvirt-python-0.4.2-5
>   python-virtinst-0.300.3-6
>   virt-manager-0.5.4-4
>   virt-top-0.4.1.0-2.el5
>   virt-viewer-0.0.3-1
>   kmod-kvm-69-1.2.6.18_53.1.21.el5
>   kvm-69-1
> 
> we try to create a new file based virtual guest fedora-8 through pxe 
> install on the kvm host machine. the problems:
> - if i select cpu architecture i386, the i can't select hypervisor kvm. 
> why? imho it's a bug!

KVM only virtualizes a CPU that matches the host. If you're on a 64-bit
host, then it only virtualizes a 64-bit CPU. It doesn't virtualize a
32-bit CPU - if you want a true 32-bit cpu on a 64-bit host you need to
emulate with QEMU instead.  That said its rather pointless because you
can run a 32-bit  guest OS in a 64-kvm KVM vm just fine.

> - after select i386 creating the disk image virt-manager crash with some 
> python backtrace as can't connect the guest.

Please file a BZ with the details

> - if i select x86_64 then in a bridged network it can't get an ip 
> address (searching for dhcp server).

There's many things which can go wrong - some versions of KVM have
broken PXE support. Start off by tracing the network traffic in the
host using tcpdump.  It may also be an incompatability with your
DHCP server and etherboot

Dan
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