Why RHEL5.6 x86_64 KVM guest kernel hangs on boot at serial port initialization?

Solution Unverified - Updated -

Issue

The KVM guest kernel hangs reproducibly on boot after the following message appears on the console:

Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 4 ports, IRQ sharing enabled

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 KVM host
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.6 KVM guest
  • 64-bit guest kernel (x86_64 architecture)
  • The noapic parameter is specified on the guest kernel command line.
  • The virtual CPU model Nehalem is specified in the guest configuration data.

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