why doesn't xen work for me on FC17?

[splatt]

I installed fc17 (auto updated kernel shortly thereafter to 3.7.3-101.fc17.x86_64)

I had read that it would be easy to install xen:
http://www.fclose.com/b/linux/3806/i...-on-fedora-17/

I followed the steps:
# yum install xen
now I appear to have xen 4.1.4-3.fc17.x86_64
# grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Everything looks good! That was easy.
I reboot and select fedora with xen; it starts to boot up, and then reboots itself ...
Each time I try to get into the xen boot, it reboots itself. At least a vanilla FC17 boot still works fine.

Maybe xen doesn't work with the updated version (of xen, or the kernel, or the two together) that I have ...
or maybe my hardware is just too new and not supported ... at least for that version of xen ...
or other? ...

Can I get confirmation from somebody that these versions of xen/kernel work for them, please?
I would also welcome xen debug suggestions -- I'm kind of a neophyte for that.
Would xen on FC18 be more likely to work for me?

[marko]

Just having Fedora 17 installed isn't enough, you have to have a Xen supported cpu (the cpu needs to support hardware virtualization extensions), and the virtualization feature turned ON in the BIOS and the bios even allowing for that (some like a few Sony Vaio's don't). The quick way to find out is to run "lscpu" from a terminal and look at the "Virtualization:" value (I've bolded it):

I get this result from lscpu on my Sony Vaio SZ-730E/C

lscpu

Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 2
On-line CPU(s) list: 0,1
Thread(s) per core: 1
Core(s) per socket: 2
Socket(s): 1
NUMA node(s): 1
Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
CPU family: 6
Model: 23
Stepping: 6
CPU MHz: 800.000
BogoMIPS: 4189.24
Virtualization: VT-x
L1d cache: 32K
L1i cache: 32K
L2 cache: 3072K
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0,1

VT-x -> supports Virtualization and so Xen should be okay
The output suggests that my Sony Vaio here can do it, but I can tell you this Vaio can't because Sony uses a lame BIOS that hard coded the VT-x feature to OFF.

[splatt]

Thanks for the comments Marko ... but I really don't think that is the problem in my case.
lspci DOES show that I have VT-x capability.
The BIOS DOES show the option to enable virtualization (two kinds) and it IS enabled (both).

In any case, I would expect that the hypervisor boots up even if it is not able to work properly with VMs. I don't even get a clean boot ... it just reboots itself.

[marko]

would you post what this says:

ls -l /boot

[splatt]

Unfortunately I can't now. Since it did not work for me I installed FC18 ... in hopes that will work for me.

---------- Post added at 05:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:21 PM ----------

now, with fc18 (3.6.10-4.fc18.x86_64), I have installed xen (4.2.1-5.fc18.x86_64) also. It does the same thing, when I select booting to "Fedora, with Xen hypervisor" I get reboot (every time).
I suppose it must be a xen problem, because normal boot works like a charm.
Maybe the hardware is somehow too new?!?
I'll get that ls listing for you shortly.

---------- Post added at 05:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:32 PM ----------

ls -l /boot
total 41603
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 122595 Dec 11 10:06 config-3.6.10-4.fc18.x86_64
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 1024 Feb 7 09:22 efi
drwxr-xr-x. 6 root root 1024 Feb 7 09:24 grub2
-rw-------. 1 root root 19472112 Feb 7 07:59 initramfs-3.6.10-4.fc18.x86_64.img
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 561588 Feb 7 07:59 initrd-plymouth.img
drwx------. 2 root root 12288 Feb 7 07:37 lost+found
-rw-------. 1 root root 2515832 Dec 11 10:06 System.map-3.6.10-4.fc18.x86_64
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 4862486 Dec 11 10:06 vmlinuz-3.6.10-4.fc18.x86_64
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 802387 Jan 22 15:50 xen-4.2.1.gz
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 12 Feb 7 09:22 xen-4.2.gz -> xen-4.2.1.gz
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 12 Feb 7 09:22 xen.gz -> xen-4.2.1.gz
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 14235548 Jan 22 15:50 xen-syms-4.2.1


there you go ... any help would be appreciated. I'd be happy to work with some xen crew too ...

[splatt]

It looks like the motherboard chipset is not supported by xen. running it on another system boots just fine. Hopefully this will be helpful to someone else.