Ubuntu 10.10 guests don't boot with natty qemu-kvm 0.14-rc1

[Roland Dreier]

Binary package hint: qemu-kvm

I have a few 10.10 guest images that I use for testing on my up-to-date natty laptop. Since the update to qemu-kvm 0.14-rc1 they no longer boot -- I get the grub screen (but I'm not able to get it to respond to the keyboard, at least through virt-viewer), and then boot fails immediately with

unaligned pointer 0xffff
Aborted. Press any key to exit.

on the screen.

These guests worked fine with the previous 0.13 qemu-kvm.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: qemu-kvm 0.14.0~rc1+noroms-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-3.30-generic 2.6.38-rc4
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-3-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Feb 16 09:26:40 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Alpha amd64 (20101206)
KvmCmdLine:
 UID PID PPID C SZ RSS PSR STIME TTY TIME CMD
 118 9690 1 94 312397 20960 3 09:26 ? 00:00:03 /usr/bin/kvm -S -M pc-0.13 -enable-kvm -m 1024 -smp 2,sockets=2,cores=1,threads=1 -name server-10.10 -uuid c0ff38d2-19b5-c3af-3434-71ae41942345 -nodefconfig -nodefaults -chardev socket,id=monitor,path=/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/server-10.10.monitor,server,nowait -mon chardev=monitor,mode=readline -rtc base=utc -boot c -drive file=/vm/server-10.10.img,if=none,id=drive-virtio-disk0,boot=on,format=qcow2 -device virtio-blk-pci,bus=pci.0,addr=0x5,drive=drive-virtio-disk0,id=virtio-disk0 -drive if=none,media=cdrom,id=drive-ide0-1-0,readonly=on,format=raw -device ide-drive,bus=ide.1,unit=0,drive=drive-ide0-1-0,id=ide0-1-0 -netdev tap,fd=40,id=hostnet0 -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=hostnet0,id=net0,mac=52:54:00:02:8d:0b,bus=pci.0,addr=0x3 -chardev pty,id=serial0 -device isa-serial,chardev=serial0 -usb -vnc 127.0.0.1:0 -k en-us -vga vmware -device virtio-balloon-pci,id=balloon0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x4
MachineType: LENOVO 2901CTO
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 LC_MESSAGES=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38-3-generic root=UUID=ab1e5491-e40c-4113-bf20-22ecb604999a ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: qemu-kvm
dmi.bios.date: 10/27/2010
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: 6UET61WW (1.41 )
dmi.board.name: 2901CTO
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: Not Available
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: Not Available
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvr6UET61WW(1.41):bd10/27/2010:svnLENOVO:pn2901CTO:pvrThinkPadT410s:rvnLENOVO:rn2901CTO:rvrNotAvailable:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
dmi.product.name: 2901CTO
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad T410s
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO

[Serge Hallyn (serge-hallyn)]

I think vgabios-vmware bios may be to blame.

[Serge Hallyn (serge-hallyn)]

Without -vga vmware, a standard maverick image boots fine for me under natty:

117 4921 1 14 15:03 ? 00:00:08 /usr/bin/kvm -S -M pc-0.13 -enable-kvm -m 512 -smp 1,sockets=1,cores=1,threads=1 -name roland-maverick-amd64 -uuid a7e40dc0-5918-7753-6567-a2f96dd5d94b -nodefconfig -nodefaults -chardev socket,id=monitor,path=/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/roland-maverick-amd64.monitor,server,nowait -mon chardev=monitor,mode=readline -rtc base=utc -boot c -drive file=/home/serge/vms/kvm/roland-maverick-amd64/tmpgZvH5J.qcow2,if=none,id=drive-virtio-disk0,boot=on,format=qcow2 -device virtio-blk-pci,bus=pci.0,addr=0x5,drive=drive-virtio-disk0,id=virtio-disk0 -netdev tap,fd=58,id=hostnet0 -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=hostnet0,id=net0,mac=00:16:36:f3:12:9c,bus=pci.0,addr=0x3 -usb -vnc 127.0.0.1:2 -vga cirrus -device virtio-balloon-pci,id=balloon0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x4

OTOH, Dustin reports that he was able to boot with '-vga vmware' just fine.

This is a bit of a mystery.

[Serge Hallyn (serge-hallyn)]

No mystery, just proof that one shouldn't do too many things at once.

In fact it was a lucid image I was first testing with. So, lucid and maverick fail with -std vmware. natty succeeds. And vmware boots with -vga cirrus.

Meaning that this appears to be a dupe of bug 717445.

[Serge Hallyn (serge-hallyn)]

Hi Roland,

we are trying to get to the bottom of this bug - it is definately in the area of the gfxmenu module in grub2. You can work around it in two ways:

1. install grub in place of grub2

2. use -vga cirrus instead of -vga vmware.

Hopefully we can find the root cause RSN.