Xen Linux kernels are unsupported

Products

• VMware
• VMware Desktop Hypervisor
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

VMware does not support Xen Linux kernels as a guest operating system.

 

This article provides information on:

• What to do when installing guest operating systems that install a Xen Linux kernel
• What to do if the guest operating system is already installed
• What to do if you convert a Linux PC and receive the following error:
  
  KeepOneBootEntry: There is no matching kernel modules for kernel /xen.gz-2.6.18-164.el5

Resolution

Some Linux operating system distributions install a Xen Linux kernel by default (such as RHEL 5, CentOS 5, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Fedora Core 7 and higher). In these cases, deselect the Virtualization option during the installation of these operating systems. Disabling the Virtualization option ensures that a supported kernel is installed.

 

If the guest operating system is already installed, select the right kernel from the GRUB prompt to boot into the non-virtualization kernel.

Alternatively, if you are familiar with editing the menu.lst file, you can edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file to comment the Virtualization kernel from booting.

 

Note: Take a backup of menu.lst file before editing, In-appropriate edit may cause the OS to corrupt. For more information on how to edit boot options in menu.lst, see your Linux distribution documentation.