Boot a guest VM from CD or DVD in XenServer


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In order to boot from cd or dvd you need to change the guest virtualization type from HVM (fully virtualized) to PV (paravirtualized).

xe vm-param-set HVM-boot-policy="BIOS order" uuid=[uuid of your vm]

After you have booted from dvd, change back to fully virtualized mode:

xe vm-param-set HVM-boot-policy="" uuid=[uuid of your vm]

Read more about difference between HVM and PV:

http://serverfault.com/questions/222010/difference-between-xen-pv-xen-kvm-and-hvm

8 thoughts on “Boot a guest VM from CD or DVD in XenServer

    • Dave says:

      OMG Ben,

      Thank you for that!!

      I was beginning to think that I was the only one who thought it was crazy to ask users of XenCenter to ssh into the xenserver, run `xe vm-set…`, install their OS from an ISO, and then run `xe-set…` every single time you wan’t to deploy a new image!!

      Your method is much more sensible!

      Dave

  1. Henrik Langos says:

    The Option might be new in XenServer 6.5 (and the associated XenCenter). My problem is switching _back_ to PV mode after doing repairs by booting from an ISO image.

    Setting HVM-boot-policy to an empty string via ssh into the XenServer host (or via the “Console” tab in XenCenter) seems to do the trick.
    I just wonder if this will undo all the “damage” that booting into recovery mode has caused.

    -henrik

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