Re: port-xen/47157: No Howto for NetBSD/xen 6.0

[Andreas Gustafsson <gson%gson.org@localhost>]

On Feb 22, John Nemeth wrote:
>  But, the short answer is install whatever version you want.

So, I tried installing a NetBSD 6.0.1 dom0, xenkernel41-4.1.4, and
xentools41-4.1.4nb2 on amd64, and ran into a number of issues.
Although not all of them are issues with the HOWTO as such, I will
list them all here anyway in an attempt to give a more complete
picture of what obstacles someone installing NetBSD/xen might
encounter.

Issue 1: After successfully installing a binary package of xenkernel from

  
ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/x86_64/6.0/All/xenkernel41-4.1.3nb2.tgz

I found that there was no corresponding binary package of xentools.
I worked around this by building xentools from source.

Issue 2: the HOWTO says to start xend using

  /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/xend start

but taken literally, this results in an error:

  /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/xend: WARNING: $xend is not set properly - see 
rc.conf(5).
  $xend is not enabled - see rc.conf(5).
  Use the following if you wish to perform the operation:
    /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/xend onestart

Issue 3: When instead trying the command

  /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/xend onestart

the message "Starting xend." is printed, but I don't get a shell
prompt back.  The proctree command shows:

 | |   |-+= 01075 root /bin/sh /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/xend onestart 
 | |   | \-+- 00871 root /usr/pkg/bin/python2.7 /usr/pkg/sbin/xend start 
 | |   |   |--= 01348 root (python2.7)
 | |   |   \--- 00489 root (blktapctrl)

Looking at the port-xen archives, I see that others have had the same
problem and that the solution is to start xencommons before xend.  But
the HOWTO does not mention xencommons at all.

Issue 4: The HOWTO says

  xend will write logs to /var/log/xend.log and /var/log/xend-debug.log

but in actuality, the log files are in /var/log/xen, not /var/log.

Issue 5: After manually starting xencommons and xend (in that order),
I tried installing a NetBSD 5.2 domU and running the ATF tests using

  anita --vmm xen test http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-5.2/amd64/

This ended in a domU kernel panic while running the fs/tmpfs/t_rename
test.  This is reproducible, and also happens with a 5.1 domU, though
the exact test where the panic happens varies; so far, it has happened
in fs/tmpfs/t_rename, fs/tmpfs/t_remove, and fs/tmpfs/t_link.  A 6.0.1
domU is not affected by this.
-- 
Andreas Gustafsson, gson%gson.org@localhost