[libvirt] text console install

[Daniel P. Berrange]

On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 09:35:57AM +0100, Michael Kress wrote:
> Hi, I'm not able to get a text console install of any distribution
> (CentOS-5.2 for example).
> I'm using the following command:
> virt-install -n myname -f myimage.img -s 10 -c
> /iso/CentOS-5.2-x86_64-bin-DVD.iso --accelerate -r 1024 --hvm --nographics
> The vnc version of this command works flawlessly, but I'd like this host
> to be a headless one.
> The installation seems to start as I can see the instance with state
> "running" with the following command:
> virsh -c qemu:///system list
> But all I see is the following messages:
> ========================
> Starting install...
> Creating domain...
> Connecting to uri: qemu:///system
> ========================
> After a while there's one strange character showing up in the console.

When you specify --hvm, --nographics, then there is no graphical console
configured. The only way of interacting with the guest is via the serial
port, but most OS (CentOS included) will not put a console on the
serial port by default.

To make this work you need to use the --location arg instead of the
--cdrom / -c arg, but still give a path tot he ISO image. THis will
cause it to directly boot off the kernel+initrd. Now also add then
--extra-args flag, with a value  'console=ttyS0' which will make the
serial port the default guest console for install

Daniel
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