Re: Xend and Xen 4.2 / NetBSD 6.1

[Roger Pau Monné <roger.pau%citrix.com@localhost>]

On 28/02/14 17:57, Darren Spruell wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> Running into some confusion regarding installed Xen services, thinking
> may have to do with aging information in
> https://www.netbsd.org/ports/xen/howto.html.
> 
> Document notes requirement to start Xen tool daemon (xend) but is then
> also framed around the use of XM for management whereas it seems XM is
> deprecated by XL. If using XL for management of Xen, is Xend required
> at all?

No, in fact xl will refuse to perform certain operations if it detects
that xend is running.

> I ask because Xend does not start and the reason looks to be similar
> to that discussed in
> http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-xen/2012/09/20/msg007634.html, that
> blktap* is not available. I can see the failure in /var/run/rc.log:
> 
> ...
> [running /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/xencommons]
> Starting xenservices: xenstored, xenconsoled.
> Setting domain 0 name...
> [running /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/xendomains]
> Starting xen domains.
> Parsing config from /usr/pkg/etc/xen/cifdev.cfg
> Daemon running with PID 336
> [running /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/xend]
> Starting xendservices: xenbackendd, xend.
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "/usr/pkg/sbin/xend", line 110, in <module>
>     sys.exit(main())
>   File "/usr/pkg/sbin/xend", line 91, in main
>     start_blktapctrl()
>   File "/usr/pkg/sbin/xend", line 77, in start_blktapctrl
>     start_daemon("blktapctrl", "")
>   File "/usr/pkg/sbin/xend", line 74, in start_daemon
>     os.execvp(daemon, (daemon,) + args)
>   File "/usr/pkg/lib/python2.7/os.py", line 344, in execvp
>     _execvpe(file, args)
>   File "/usr/pkg/lib/python2.7/os.py", line 380, in _execvpe
>     func(fullname, *argrest)
> OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
> [running /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/xen-watchdog]
> Starting xenwatchdog.
> ...
> 
> And despite the failure in xend I can see Xen dom0 and domU operating
> fine using xl:
> 
> $ sudo xl list
> Name                                        ID   Mem VCPUs      State   
> Time(s)
> Domain-0                                     0   256     1     r-----    
> 2252.5
> cifdev                                      12  3072     2     -b----     
> 146.0
> 
> Is it the case then that xend is no longer necessary unless using XM?

That's right, as said above xl will not work correctly if xend is running.

> And does XM generally work if Xend won't start?

No, in order to use xm you need xend.

Roger.