On 2/10/12 12:43 PM, John D. Baker wrote:
I'm finally able to put some time toward learning to use Xen again and want to go ahead with Xen 4.1.2 as available in pkgsrc-2011Q4. The boot loader loads the netbsd-XEN3_DOM0 kernel (amd64) (netbsd-XEN3PAE_DOM0 on i386) and multiboots the "xen.gz" kernel, but xen claims the DOM0 kernel is not an ELF binary.
I've seen this before, but I can't recall exactly what I did to resolve it. Have you updated the bootloader? I'm definitely running xen 4.1.2 dom0s with recent NetBSD dom0 kernels (5.99.59, 5.99.64). I know there have been issues with the bootloader and various things which have been fixed in -current over the last year or so.
I'm not 100% sure this will work; netbsd xen kernels can't currently load modules, and I'm not sure whether that will apply to rndseed as well.Booting a regular kernel loads all modules from the appropriate path. My machine's "/var" is on a different partition from the boot device so I relocate the entropy file to "/stand/db" in "/boot.cfg" and in "/etc/rc.conf".
I've mostly seen references to NetBSD as DOMU under XEN 4. Am I missing something in booting XEN 4 with NetBSD as DOM0? Using a different DOM0 (i.e. a penguin-OS) is not really an option because of the disruption it would cause. I last tried with XEN3.3 and NetBSD 5.1_STABLE. I could boot DOM0, but never got around to succeeding with getting a DOMU running. The DOM0 kernel lacked a number of important devices needed for my usual work, so I had to put it aside. I had to start using -current to get better device and application support, but last I tried with XEN3.3 it would crash and hang on boot with a -current netbsd-XEN3PAE_DOM0 kernel. Now that I have time and access to resources to put towards learning XEN, it seems I'm thwarted yet again.
Don't give up! I'm definitely doing what you're looking to do, though I don't use a PAE dom0 kernel, only amd64.
+j