[GLLUG] Multiple grub installs in xen guest

[James Courtier-Dutton]

On Fri, 11 Oct 2019 at 14:28, Tim Woodall via GLLUG
<gllug at mailman.lug.org.uk> wrote:
>
> Does anyone know whether the default debian grub-xen stuff allows you to
> select the grub root?
>
> I have a bootable xen image that uses grub from /dev/xvda2. I also have
> one that uses grub from /dev/vg-mirror/boot. (the vg is inside the disk
> I export to the guest, not the vg of dom0)
>
> I want to be able to boot the former, but have the latter available to
> mount. But it is insistent that it will use the vg boot in favour of the
> raw ext3 one.
>

I have not used xen in a long time so cannot help there.
>From my experience with grub, sometimes you have to manually configure
what the possible boot devices are.
But, have you considered Linux's own VM tech, using KVM and QEMU ?
It has a nice option of loading the kernel before starting the VM,
thus bypassing the need for grub entirely.
virt-manager is an OK GUI to get going with it. There are also various
web based tools to manage the VMs also.

I have been playing with an AMD Vega GPU passthru on it recently, and
fixed a QEMU bug on the way.
AMD developers are very easy to get hold of when needed.
Works very nicely, and stably now.

Kind Regards

James