kernels are no longer provided in a form bootable by Xen (when running an 8.04 LTS Dom0)

[Ralf Hildebrandt]

I'm running karmic as a DomU guest on a host that still runs 8.04 LTS as Dom0.

It turns out that the 8.04 LTS Dom0 cannot start any of the kernels provided by the new linux-image-virtual packages, since those come with bzImage kernels only:

# dpkg -l |egrep "(linux-image|xen)"
ii linux-image-2.6.31-16-virtual 2.6.31-16.52 Linux kernel image for version 2.6.31 on x86
ii linux-image-virtual 2.6.31.16.29 Linux kernel image for virtual machines

# file /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-16-server
/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-16-server: Linux kernel x86 boot executable bzImage, version 2.6.31-16-server (buildd@yellow, RO-rootFS, root_dev 0x801, swap_dev 0x3, Normal VGA

This is not bootable - I had to rebuild a kernel according to the docs described on:
http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/Kernel.org_Linux_on_Xen

Solution:

* Provide an additional vmlinux or stripped & gzipped vmlinuz...
* Provide a way of converting /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-16-server into a vmlinux or stripped & gzipped vmlinuz file

which says:

"A bzImage will be generated, which you can use if you want to boot this kernel directly on the host system. You can not use the bzImage to boot the kernel under Xen as it is not currently a supported format for the Xen tools. Instead, you need to use the vmlinux image, which should be in the root of your kernel tree."

The Dom0 is running:
* linux-image-2.6.24-26-xen
* xen-utils-3.2
* xen-hypervisor-3.2

[Andy Whitcroft (apw)]

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately.]

This bug was reported against the linux-meta package when it likely should have been reported against the linux package instead. We are automatically transitioning this to the linux kernel package so that the appropriate teams are notified and made aware of this issue.

If this bug really is a bug in the linux-meta package you can move it back to linux-meta and tag it kj-linux-meta, or contact us on the #ubuntu-kernel channel on the FreeNode IRC server. Thanks.

[kokushibyou (kokushibyou)]

This seems to have happened sometime between 2.6.24-24.57 and 2.6.24-24.61 - I currently have machines booting fine with the 2.6.24-24.57 xen kernel, but the .61 files are unusable. This puts a monkey wrench in some of my automation, and I personally just need to know if bootable images will ever again be provided. Please let me know what the plan is if you can.

[kokushibyou (kokushibyou)]

My comment is most likely incorrect here (I figured out my issue) but still want to be notified of changes/updates to this one. Thanks!

[Ralf Hildebrandt (ralf-hildebrandt)]

The solution is to use the linux-image-ec2 kernels.

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This bug was filed against a series that is no longer supported and so is being marked as Won't Fix. If this issue still exists in supported series, please file a new bug.