SMG 10.7.4-13 on VPS using vda disk

[Jordan Hayes]

I'm trying to make this work.  The first problem is that the kickstart file isolinux/ks.cfg has a line like this:

DIR="/sys/block"
ROOTDRIVE=""
DRIVE_SIZE="0"
# Check for RAID controller disks
if [ -d $DIR/cciss!c0d0 ]; then
ROOTDRIVE=cciss/c0d0
DRIVE_SIZE=`fdisk -l /dev/$ROOTDRIVE|grep ^Disk|awk '{ print $5 }'`
else
# find the first drive that doesn't have removable media and isn't USB
   for DEV in sda sdb sdc sdd sde hda hdb hdc hdd hde; do

This results in kickstarter not finding a disk to install on and dying, because it's only lookoing for sd? and hd? disks.  If you open up a shell at this point, you can clearly see that /dev/vda exists and would be the right disk to use.

There's probably better ways to do this, but I just added vda to the beginning of the list and rebuilt the ISO ... but now it just hangs during boot.  At first I thought it was just stuck somehow, but then after typing a lot, it continued.  Apparently this is a symptom of something using up all the entropy on the machine during initialization of the rngs, and you can see from the screenshot that it took almost 30 seconds to finish initializing the crng .... but then it's stuck again.

I literally added 4 characters to one file and rebuilt the iso ... is there some other kind of magic in there that knows about which disk to use?

[alexander-smg]

Call support.

[Jordan Hayes]

LOL, thanks.

[alexander-smg]

I approve this message

[Thomas Anderson]

My suggestion would be to abandon trying to do this with a 10.7.4 release and download a 10.7.5 ISO.
10.7.5 has been tested to run under KVM, wile earlier releases have not.
If you still have problems, then, as Alex said, call support.
The difference is, if you demonstrate the issue on 10.7.5, you can avoid the likely (and reasonable) "that is not a supported configuration" response from support.
Net:
- Start with a 10.7.5 base.
- Don't put the "/dev/vda" change in
Give it a try.  
If it still doesn't work, then, go ahead and follow Alex's advice and open a support ticket.

I'll leave the CRNG thing alone until we hear back on whether you can get a file system mounted.
Good luck! :)

[Jordan Hayes]

Update: it still doesn't work with 10.7.5-388.iso for the same reason.  I opened a ticket, and got back "yeah, that's not supported" and I asked nicely if they would forward the suggestion to the development folks ... the logic to scan /sys/block for the first non-removable disk as the place to install appears in a different part of the kickstart file, so it's not like they aren't already headed down that road, so maybe one of these days it will appear.

I'm still a little baffled why rebuilding the iso didn't just work ... maybe I'll try binary editing the iso and just change the "sda" string to vda" :)

[alexander-smg]

Yuk. Go physical like me

[Jordan Hayes]

Physical is $3x and editing the ISO worked.