Bug 32536 - Problems concerning UCS 3.2 on vmware ESXI 5.1
Problems concerning UCS 3.2 on vmware ESXI 5.1
Status: CLOSED FIXED
Product: UCS
Classification: Unclassified
Component: General
UCS 3.2
amd64 other
: P5 normal (vote)
: UCS 3.2
Assigned To: Janek Walkenhorst
Felix Botner
: interim-3
Depends on:
Blocks:
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Reported: 2013-09-09 21:34 CEST by Marcus
Modified: 2013-11-19 06:42 CET (History)
1 user (show)

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Description Marcus 2013-09-09 21:34:55 CEST
Hi there,
i've downloaded the iso for UCS 3.2 and installed it on my ESXI 5.1.
All went great.. after installation process has ended.. the virtual machine restarts and after the grub loader the machine stops working on the message "waiting /dev to be fully populated".
there is no -- kernel panic -- or everything else. The Machine crashes without a message on my virtual machine.
I've tested it on much configurations now.. different system properties and different templates without success.
have you tested the new version on a ESXi Host ? The old one works smooth on it.
Greetings.
Comment 1 Stefan Gohmann univentionstaff 2013-09-11 08:39:53 CEST
Thanks for the report! We will check this.
Comment 2 Moritz Muehlenhoff univentionstaff 2013-10-14 14:13:03 CEST
(In reply to Marcus from comment #0)
> Hi there,
> i've downloaded the iso for UCS 3.2 and installed it on my ESXI 5.1.
> All went great.. after installation process has ended.. the virtual machine
> restarts and after the grub loader the machine stops working on the message
> "waiting /dev to be fully populated".
> there is no -- kernel panic -- or everything else. The Machine crashes
> without a message on my virtual machine.
> I've tested it on much configurations now.. different system properties and
> different templates without success.
> have you tested the new version on a ESXi Host ? The old one works smooth on
> it.
> Greetings.

I made an installation using ESXi 5.1 and the recent 5.5 release. I'm seeing the same symptoms: If I run with a graphical bootsplash, the bootsplash animation freezes at some point. The console window in the Windows VSphare client even freezes hard (the window doesn't react any longer).

It I run with "nosplash", only the "waiting for /dev to be fully populated" message appears. 

In both cases however, the system itself works fine, only the bootsplash or the console setup are broken. I can connect via SSH and the services provided via the web are functional as well.

I tried many workarounds/configuration options (e.g. disabling some of the Grub video drivers) in Grub, but none of them were successful. After some tests it turned out that this is caused by the vga= parameter passed on the command line. If I remove it, the system boots fine.

Marcus, do you still have that system available and could you test whether that solves the boot problem for you as well?
Comment 3 Moritz Muehlenhoff univentionstaff 2013-10-16 11:21:59 CEST
I could track this down to the vmxgfx driver, which locks up if booted under ESXi.
(vmxgfx is a 3D DRM driver for the graphics adapter emulated by vmware) if a framebuffer console is present.

This is now fixed by providing a modprobe configuration file which passes the "enable_fbdev=1" option to the driver if loaded. With it, everything works fine again.

Marcus, thanks again for the report. This should be fixed in the upcoming release candidate of UCS 3.2.

For the internal QA:
ESXi is installed on the systems "xen4" (ESXi 5.1) and "xen5" (ESXi 5.5). The VSphere administration tools (Windows-based) can be downloaded via http://xenX.
Comment 4 Felix Botner univentionstaff 2013-10-28 14:30:20 CET
The grub menu is displayed fine for the installer dvd and the installed system, but the bootsplash hangs during boot (the console/gdm are properly usable after startup).

If i remove the "vmwgfx enable_fbdev=1" option the bootsplash works fine

so, why we use "mwgfx enable_fbdev=1"
Comment 5 Janek Walkenhorst univentionstaff 2013-10-29 16:35:38 CET
(In reply to Felix Botner from comment #4)
> The grub menu is displayed fine for the installer dvd and the installed
> system, but the bootsplash hangs during boot (the console/gdm are properly
> usable after startup).
> 
> If i remove the "vmwgfx enable_fbdev=1" option the bootsplash works fine
> 
> so, why we use "mwgfx enable_fbdev=1"
As discussed, console not useable without it.
Comment 6 Felix Botner univentionstaff 2013-10-29 16:36:20 CET
OK
Comment 7 Stefan Gohmann univentionstaff 2013-11-19 06:42:36 CET
UCS 3.2 has been released:
 http://docs.univention.de/release-notes-3.2-en.html
 http://docs.univention.de/release-notes-3.2-de.html

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