VM From XenCenter 8.0 Template Not Booting - Showing 'No Bootable Device' Error

[Michael Cropper]

Hi, 

 

I've just got XenServer 80 set up which I can connect to from XenCenter 8.0. I've created a VM from one of the handy templates that comes with it by default, but none of them are booting. Instead, I keep getting the error "No bootable device." - I've tried various different templates from the 'guest-tools.iso' (which I'm guessing is default installed as I haven't downloaded anything for this specifically) and all produce the same error when trying to start the VM. 

 

Any ideas?

 

 

Regards,

Michael

[Jose Pablo Benavides]

Michael,

 

Can you give more details?

 

As for example what OS you are using? VM specs, logs, are you booting from an ISO? where is it stored? screenshots.

 

[Alan Lantz]

If the boot option is wrong the VM won't boot. But yes, I would assume its something simple. 

 

--Alan--

 

[Tobias Kreidl]

When you say you created a VM from a template, you do have also the matching ISO with the OS distribution towards which the template is applied, correct? And any licensing will also need to be applied, as necessary.

The templates are of course  just the means to create uniform configurations of the various operating systems. You will need also access to the ISO for the operating system, itself.

 

-=Tobias

[Michael Cropper]

Apologies for the late reply, just been away for a few days. 

 

When I open up XenCenter from a fresh install and connecting to server with a fresh install of XenServer, there are a list of templates that are there by default in the left hand panel in yellow (I've not done anything to install these), so I've tried a few options, CentOS6, CentOS7, Ubuntu, Linux - all the VMs I create (by right clicking on the template, and selecting the 'template wizard' option) - all end up with the same error message. 

 

From what I can tell, the guest-tools.iso has all of the templates installed within it? I may be wrong here. Or do I have to download the CentOS6.iso (etc...) versions and somehow link the Template Wizard to the individually downloaded ISOs?

 

In reality I imagine I'll only ever be using less than 3 ISOs, likely CentOS 6/7 and a Linux box, likely Redhat. So this isn't a big task if I do need to do this. 

 

If so, how do I go about doing this? And if so, what use are those default templates if they don't actually work? 

 

Any reading material that you can point me in the direction of for this would also be helpful as I don't recall seeing anything outlining this in detail to help with this initial setup. 

 

 

Regards,

Michael

 

 

[Alan Lantz]

The guest-tools.iso only has the software to install the tools within the VM once you have that VM guest OS installed.

When you create a new VM and choose your OS template what you typically do then is choose your ISO for your 

installation media from your ISO library that you have setup that contains all of your ISO's for your installs. This can

be a CIFS or NFS share.  If you have installation media on a CD/DVD you could choose the actual server drive as well.

 

 

--Alan--

 

[Michael Cropper]

Thanks for the information. That has helped to answer that part of the question, which raises a few more questions though. 

 

Basic setup I have at the minute is as follows (same network);

 - 1x PC (Windows 10 + XenCenter) - DHCP (but I can set this up as a Static IP if required?)

 - 1x Server (with XenServer installed) (no CD/DVD drives - just a bunch of HDDs) - Static IP

 

So following on from your comment that I need the ISO, I downloaded the ISO to the Windows PC - but I can't for the life of me figure out how I get the New VM Wizard within XenCenter to basically read an ISO (I downloaded CentOS7 ISO from here, https://wiki.centos.org/Download) which lives on the Windows PC, and apply it to the new VM on the XenServer. 

 

I'm sure I've missed some basic reading around this part of the setup as I'm finding using XenCentre quite difficult at the minute to something which is fundamentally such a simple thing to do. 

 

Ultimately what I'd like to have is to be able to download any ISOs I like (for whatever Operating Systems) on the Windows PC then use these as ways to create the VMs on the Server. I don't mind having to copy the files over to the server (somehow..... not sure how yet....maybe via XenCenter?). 

 

Currently I've only the single PC that is linking with the single Server  - So surely what I'm trying to achieve is relatively simple?

 

 

Regards,

Michael

 

[Alan Lantz]

You need to create a CIFS or NFS share on your Windows 10 system. Then within XenCenter create a new ISO Library that 

can mount that share/export on your Windows 10 system. 

 

--Alan--

 

[Tobias Kreidl]

You need the full OS installation ISOs for the VMS; as mentioned above, the templates serve primarily to create uniform sets of installation parameters (such as network definitions, disk space, number of VCPUs, size of memory, etc.).

 

-=Tobias

[Michael Cropper]

Thanks guys - I think I'm getting somewhere now :-) 

 

From what I can tell, since you add the Storage Repository to the Server (via XenCenter on the Windows PC), now I can see why you need to create a Network File Share (Linux) / CIFS (Windows) - because it's technically the server that is looking for the installation media (i.e. Server talking to PC to get the ISO) - rather than the installation media being pushed from the PC via XenCenter to the Server as part of the VM creation. 

 

I've managed to get CentOS7 installed on the VM now, so things are starting to look like they're going in the right direction again - thanks for all the help. 

 

 

Regards,

Michael

[Tobias Kreidl]

Michael,

Sounds good, glad you're making progress!

 

-=Tobias

[Alan Lantz]

Awesome. Yes, it seems awkward at first, but with a pool of servers having them all point to the same SR 

repository for the installation ISO's is much more efficient. Same thing with storage as well. 

 

--Alan--