[Bug 579596] [NEW] VNC console doesn't accept keyboard input during PXE boot

[John Morrissey]

Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: qemu-kvm

On lucid, I'm PXE booting a VM.

Keyboard input on the VNC console works fine until PXELinux loads, so I
can answer "N" to:

Boot from (N)etwork or (Q)uit? N

just fine, but once PXELinux loads, the VNC console ignores all keyboard
input at the "boot:" prompt. No matter what keystrokes I hit, nothing
happens on the VNC console.

Input on PXELinux's *serial* console works fine. I can boot a target and
keyboard input on the VNC console works fine when the target boots. What
I type on the PXELinux serial console appears in the PXELinux VNC
console. Interestingly, if I request a nonexistent boot target on the
serial console, the VNC console starts accepting keyboard input. For
example:

root at pxe-244:~# virsh console foo
Connected to domain foo
Escape character is ^]

PXELINUX 3.63 Debian-2008-07-15  Copyright (C) 1994-2008 H. Peter Anvin
boot: a
Could not find kernel image: a
boot: 

The VNC console now accepts keyboard input.

I have kvm-pxe installed (obviously, since the VM *does* successfully
load PXELinux). I'm not sure how to troubleshoot this further, or even
if this is a bug in qemu-kvm proper; this is a strange failure mode.

The libvirt domain XML for the VM I'm booting is below. It was created
by a local tool, but using virt-manager(1) to create and PXE boot a VM
exhibits the same behavior.


<domain type='kvm'>
  <name>foo</name>
  <uuid>c80f27f4-cf2d-2125-9dd5-ca35855bdf42</uuid>
  <memory>2097152</memory>
  <currentMemory>2097152</currentMemory>
  <vcpu>1</vcpu>
  <os>
    <type arch='x86_64' machine='pc-0.12'>hvm</type>
    <boot dev='network'/>
  </os>
  <features>
    <acpi/>
  </features>
  <clock offset='utc'/>
  <on_poweroff>destroy</on_poweroff>
  <on_reboot>restart</on_reboot>
  <on_crash>restart</on_crash>
  <devices>
    <emulator>/usr/bin/kvm</emulator>
    <disk type='file' device='disk'>
      <source file='/var/lib/libvirt/images/foo.raw'/>
      <target dev='vda' bus='virtio'/>
    </disk>
    <interface type='bridge'>
      <mac address='02:00:00:3d:7c:a5'/>
      <source bridge='br0'/>
      <target dev='vnet0'/>
      <model type='virtio'/>
    </interface>
    <serial type='pty'>
      <target port='0'/>
    </serial>
    <console type='pty'>
      <target port='0'/>
    </console>
    <input type='mouse' bus='ps2'/>
    <graphics type='vnc' port='-1' autoport='yes' listen='0.0.0.0'/>
    <video>
      <model type='cirrus' vram='9216' heads='1'/>
    </video>
  </devices>
</domain>

** Affects: qemu-kvm (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

-- 
VNC console doesn't accept keyboard input during PXE boot
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/579596
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