[virt-tools-list] virt-install looking for i386 installer but should be looking for amd64 installer

[Cole Robinson]

On 08/08/2016 08:00 PM, Dave Hein wrote:
> 
> 
> On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 10:48 AM, Cole Robinson <crobinso at redhat.com
> <mailto:crobinso at redhat.com>> wrote:
> 
>     On 08/06/2016 09:51 PM, Dave Hein wrote:
>     > I've been trying to install a KVM guest using Ubuntu Server 16.04. But I
>     keep
>     > getting the error "Couldn't find hvm kernel for Ubuntu tree".
>     >
>     > ubuntu server 16.04
>     > virt-install 1.3.2
>     > libosinfo 0.2.12
> 
>  
> 
>     [snip]
> 
>  
> 
> 
>     You can also see the files it's trying to access by passing --debug to
>     virt-install
> 
> 
> Thanks; that's useful.
>  
> 
>     > As you can see, at the end it was looking for an i386 installer. It didn't
>     > find it (the media was am64 media, not i386 media).
>     >
>     > But if it had been looking for
>     > "/isos/ubus-docker/install/netboot/ubuntu-installer/amd64/linux" it would have
>     > found it.
>     >
> 
>     So that's a mounted iso I take it? Never tried that for a --location install,
>     only tried public mirrors, which want a URL like
>     http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/wily/main/installer-amd64/
>     <http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/wily/main/installer-amd64/> .
>     virt-install may need patches to be fixed to work with the iso layout
> 
> Yes, an ISO.
> 
> The virt-install man page says that you can't use --cdrom if you are going to
> also use --extra-args; that --extra-args is only supported by a --location
> install.
> 
> The virt-install man page also says that --location can point to an ISO file
> or a directory containing a mounted ISO, that network URL are supported but
> not required.
>  
> There are a lot of folks out there who have tried and failed to use --location
> + --extra-args to do a text install from ISOs. Everyone gives up and goes with
> the network install from Ubuntu mirrors. But that is inefficient given an ISO
> available locally.
> 
> It is worth noting that using --location to point to an ISO file did work
> under Ubuntu 14.04 (don't know what version of virt-install maps to that), but
> fails under Ubuntu 16.04 (with virt-install 1.3.2).  See
> http://askubuntu.com/questions/789358/virt-install-using-location-with-iso-image-no-longer-working
> for another example of this problem.
> 
> I agree that a patch will be required. I spent some time digging into the code
> and understand why i386 was picked (because the code is looking for a
> directory in the --location URL path that is 'amd64' and defaults to 'i386' if
> it doesn't find 'amd64').
> 
> I might attempt some kind of patch, but as this is my first time reading the
> source please don't depend on me for something usable anytime soon. I also
> don't grok how the Linux/Ubuntu installers work, so lots of learning curve to
> climb. :-/

What could help track it down is:

- See if latest virt-install --location works with a ubuntu-14.04 era ISO
- If so, compare the file layout of 14.04 and 16.04 and list the differences
here. Maybe the file layout changed  and virtinst/urlfetcher.py needs to be
extended to handle the new layout

- Cole