I installed an updated a fresh Leap 42.2 on my laptop wanting to try out Xen. Every thing installed fine and the I started and enabled libvirtd. When booting with the Xen hypervisor I get a quick glimpse of about a page of text then a black screen and the computer hangs up. Being a Xen newbie, I’m not sure how to start diagnosing the problem. Any help appreciated. Here’s some info about my system:
The journalctl does not display the boot log when I choose the Xen kernel from the boot menu. Could it be because it’s another environment than the one that actually boots?
Also I neglected to mention that I have full disk encryption but when I boot the Xen kernel I never get prompted for the passphrase before the system hangs.
I meant that you should boot into the regular kernel, then run the journalctl command to retrieve the bootlog of the previous boot.
As for your full disk encryption,
Unless you can’t secure your system another way(eg lock your system to the furniture, locate in a locked room, etc) encrypting disks and partitions has negligible benefits and carries enormous relative risk. Be aware that encrypting data on the disk is effective only when data is at risk and whenever you access the data, everything is unlocked and no more secure than regular unencrypted data. Bottom line is that unless your device is mobile or you’re afraid of the cleaning crews when your system is powered down, you shouldn’t be encrypting.
Your method of encryption is likely relevant to your problems. Disks can be encrypted several ways, eg GPG, TPM, Disk TPM, more. You’ll likely have to look at the method’s documentation, its supported boot sequence and supporting multiple kernels (in particular the Xen kernel).
Basically, my approach to virtualization is to do everything possible to maximize the reliability of the HostOS, and disk or partition encryption is definitely something I’d avoid.