[Mageia-dev] RFT: xen support

[Maarten Vanraes]

Op maandag 11 april 2011 10:33:30 schreef Thomas Backlund:
> Hi,
> 
> xen-4.1.0-1.mga1 is now avaliable in the repos.
> 
> And as of kernel-2.6.38.2-4.mga1 there has been some cleanups and addons
> for xen:
> 
> There is now a kernel-xen-pvops that also should work as dom0.
> 
> Now this is mostly upstream kenel.org code so its not as fully
> featured as the old kernel-xen. You can see the features listed here:
> http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenParavirtOps.
> 
> There is one exception: our 2.6.38 kernel has xen-netback backend driver
> added.
> 
> So those of you that have been using xen, please test atleast the
> following:
> 
> - check that kernel-server still works as a xen guest
> - try to use kernel-xen-pvops as dom0 and see how it works
> (you can also try to use kernel-xen-pvops as a normal xen guest)
> 
> Have fun...
> 
> --
> Thomas

i don't know how much people have been testing, but...

dom0 xen didn't work with .xz kernels, i put in a patch for that, and now it 
works.

in a kvm guest, i've got a working xen dom0 host, but the libvirtd 
implementation seems unable to find the cpu architecture, and if i force to be 
the same as the host, i am unable to boot the dom0 anymore. (i think this is 
likely due to the nature of a KVM guest not really being suitable for a XEN 
dom0).

i've tried a physical server, but when i finally got to the point of libvirtd, 
it seemed to not bootup anymore (it was an old disk, which i thought got 
broken, seeing the IO errors)

I put in a new disk, only to note that the X2 suddenly only had 1 core, which 
i found very odd, and i noticed the IO errors before  (and also now) were 
really sata bus errors... (and if i remember correctly this machine had been 
used with a semi-exploding PowerSupply)... so i think this mobo/cpu is 
fried... now i need to find new hardware to restart testing again :-( .

note that allthough i can have everything running, i never tested with actual 
guests, let alone online migrations...

however, i did find out that this xenpvops has 2 different toolchains:

xm and xl. xl seems to do pretty much the same, but apparently doesn't require 
xend to be running (it reacts directly to the kernel/hypervisor?)

also the xencommons init script seems to start xenconsoled and xenstored on 
it's own.

i'm thinking of removing both those init scripts and having xend not start as 
default. (allthough i don't know about xendomains).

i'll keep you guys posted.