LILO incompatibility with KVM?

LILO incompatibility with KVM?

[Andy Sy]

I am trying to install Slackware on KVM-based
VPS hosting and keep getting a "LILO keytable read
/ checksum error" upon booting.

Grub-based distros install fine on said VPS.

Apparently certain builds/versions of KVM break
with LILO:

http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kvm/2008/9/1/3152074/thread
http://support.zenwalk.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=18894

Since it might not be feasible to ask the outsourced
VPS providers to change their setup, does anyone know
of a workaround that can be implemented on my side
to get LILO to work correctly with these particular
KVM versions?


TIA for any help...

Re: LILO incompatibility with KVM?

[Anthony Liguori]

Andy Sy wrote:
> I am trying to install Slackware on KVM-based
> VPS hosting and keep getting a "LILO keytable read
> / checksum error" upon booting.
>
> Grub-based distros install fine on said VPS.

Are you using virtio disks?  It's probably that extboot doesn't 
implement enough int13 functions for LILO.

If you have the option, switching to an IDE disk may be a work around.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori

Re: LILO incompatibility with KVM?

[Andy Sy]

> Andy Sy wrote:
> I am trying to install Slackware on KVM-based
> VPS hosting and keep getting a "LILO keytable read
> / checksum error" upon booting.
>
> Grub-based distros install fine on said VPS.

 > Anthony Liguori wrote:
> 
> Are you using virtio disks?  It's probably that extboot doesn't 
> implement enough int13 functions for LILO.
> 
> If you have the option, switching to an IDE disk may be a work around.

 > Glauber Costa wrote:
 >
 > which version of kvm are you using?
 > I fixed a bug with those exact characteristics quite a while ago...

Hi guys,

Thanks for responding.

I was wondering if there is a LILO-based workaround (perhaps
something I can put in lilo.conf itself) to avoid having that
error show up?

I will try to ask our VPS hoster for the info above but the
hosting company may be leery of modifying their KVM setup
(immediately) just to accommodate my specific situation and we
need to get this LILO-based distro up and running in the
short-term.


Thanks,
Andy

Re: LILO incompatibility with KVM?

[Andy Sy]

Glauber Costa wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 4:03 PM, Andy Sy<andy.sy@neotitans.com> wrote:
>> I am trying to install Slackware on KVM-based
>> VPS hosting and keep getting a "LILO keytable read
>> / checksum error" upon booting.
>>
>> Grub-based distros install fine on said VPS.
>>
>> Apparently certain builds/versions of KVM break
>> with LILO:
>>
>> http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kvm/2008/9/1/3152074/thread
>> http://support.zenwalk.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=18894
>>
>> Since it might not be feasible to ask the outsourced
>> VPS providers to change their setup, does anyone know
>> of a workaround that can be implemented on my side
>> to get LILO to work correctly with these particular
>> KVM versions?

> which version of kvm are you using?
> 
> I fixed a bug with those exact characteristics quite a while ago...

According to our hosting company the version of kvm they
are using is:

QEMU PC emulator version 0.9.1 (kvm-72)

Re: LILO incompatibility with KVM?

[Glauber Costa]

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 12:40 PM, Andy Sy<andy.sy@neotitans.com> wrote:
> Glauber Costa wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 4:03 PM, Andy Sy<andy.sy@neotitans.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I am trying to install Slackware on KVM-based
>>> VPS hosting and keep getting a "LILO keytable read
>>> / checksum error" upon booting.
>>>
>>> Grub-based distros install fine on said VPS.
>>>
>>> Apparently certain builds/versions of KVM break
>>> with LILO:
>>>
>>> http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kvm/2008/9/1/3152074/thread
>>> http://support.zenwalk.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=18894
>>>
>>> Since it might not be feasible to ask the outsourced
>>> VPS providers to change their setup, does anyone know
>>> of a workaround that can be implemented on my side
>>> to get LILO to work correctly with these particular
>>> KVM versions?
>
>> which version of kvm are you using?
>>
>> I fixed a bug with those exact characteristics quite a while ago...
>
> According to our hosting company the version of kvm they
> are using is:
>
> QEMU PC emulator version 0.9.1 (kvm-72)
>
Too old.
Newer kvm versions have a fix for that.



-- 
Glauber  Costa.
"Free as in Freedom"
http://glommer.net

"The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act."