Objective
Here we assume that you have already created VM’s device to link to desired ISO image you wish to boot from. The objective is to instruct XenServer’s host virtual machine to boot from ISO CD/DVD image instead of default VDI disk. Failure to do so may result in following error message:
The bootloader returned an error msg: Unable to find partition containing kernel
Requirements
Administrative Local or Remote command line access to XenServer is required to complete this task.
Instructions
Obtain VM UUID
Obtain UUID of the virtual machine you would like to boot from the ISO CD/DVD image. For example:
# xe vm-list uuid ( RO) : c2e2329c-6637-6db5-eb04-a59d16487e10 name-label ( RW): openSUSE42 power-state ( RO): halted uuid ( RO) : 87814cf9-22d4-4bc4-afaa-ae95a3b10aff name-label ( RW): Control domain on host: xenserver power-state ( RO): running uuid ( RO) : 9db43f69-28e7-53f8-fa33-bf4d100b891a name-label ( RW): Debian8 power-state ( RO): running
Set new boot policy
Using the VM UUID set a new boot policy to “Bios order”. Example:
# xe vm-param-set HVM-boot-policy="BIOS order" uuid=c2e2329c-6637-6db5-eb04-a59d16487e10
Disable ISO boot
Once you performed operating system installation you may need to disable ISO boot:
# xe vm-param-set HVM-boot-policy="" uuid=c2e2329c-6637-6db5-eb04-a59d16487e10