Re: [Xen-devel] What is the current state of Dom0 kernel support?

[Pasi Kärkkäinen <pasik@xxxxxx>]

On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 09:22:57AM +0100, Anthony Wright wrote:
> Jeremy Fitzhardinge wrote:
> > On 07/08/09 15:14, Pasi Kärkkäinen wrote:
> >   
> >> On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 11:29:30AM -0700, Jeremy Fitzhardinge wrote:
> >>   
> >>     
> >>> On 06/26/09 11:21, Tim Post wrote:
> >>>     
> >>>       
> >>>> Is it possible for you to set up a blog just for this? I think many
> >>>> people are just going to pull your tree, it would be really, really nice
> >>>> to have a feed to pull so we know when to pull and update .. especially
> >>>> when the next merge window closes.
> >>>>
> >>>> As if you didn't have your hands full already :) Perhaps something on
> >>>> xen.org just for kernel development?
> >>>>
> >>>> Sorry if something like this already exists.
> >>>>   
> >>>>       
> >>>>         
> >>> No, its a good idea.  I'll sort something out (and poke me if I don't
> >>> appear to do anything in the next few days).
> >>>
> >>>     
> >>>       
> >> Btw what's the current tree people should be testing? xen-tip/next or
> >> rebase/master? 
> >>     
> >
> > rebase/master is what I'm currently working on.  It's work-in-progress,
> > but it works for me at the moment.  I'd appreciate any test results you
> > have.  (I don't yet have a fix in there for your PAE issue however.)
> >
> > I'm planning on renaming these branches to xen/... and proposing they
> > become the basis for ongoing work
> Jeremy, I'm desperately trying to move to a more up to date Dom0 kernel
> as I'm finding it increasing difficult to find motherboards that work
> with the drivers in 2.6.18 (Sometimes I can get away with patching the
> kernel, but even this is a very poor solution because it means a
> development & release cycle everytime somebody tries a new motherboard).
> 
> I've been following your attempts to mainline Dom0 support, and hoped
> this would be the solution to my problems, but now that's been postponed
> I'm trying to find an alternative solution.
> 
> I need a stable kernel as this is for production systems, and wondered
> if you (or anybody else) could advise the best route to take.
> 
> I'm aware that you're continuing to work on the mainline patches and
> wondered if you intend to stablise things in the next few months to
> allow a formal replacement of the 2.6.18 Dom0 kernel. You seemed to be
> suggesting this, but I wasn't quite sure. I also got the impression that
> your patches don't have all the features of the 2.6.18 kernel, but again
> I wasn't quite sure if this was the case, and if it was, whether it
> would be a problem for most people.
> 
> I'm also a aware of a thread started by Kier a month or two ago about
> replacing the 2.6.18 kernel with one of the rebased kernels, but wasn't
> clear what conclusion was reached.
> 
> Instinctively I'd prefer to go with your patches, but failing that could
> you/somebody recommend one of the rebased kernels.
> 

Please check this wiki page:
http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenDom0Kernels

Hopefully it helps a bit.

pv_ops dom0 kernel was made the default in xen 3.5 development version
(xen-unstable). Xen 3.4.x still uses the old linux-2.6.18-xen tree as a
default.

I've been running pv_ops dom0 kernels for a while now, and the latest kernel
that worked for me (on 32bit PAE) was 2.6.30-rc6 from xen-tip/next tree.
although you need to disable CONFIG_HIGHPTE on 32bit, so make sure you have
CONFIG_HIGHPTE=n to work around a bug/race with xen_set_pte().

Current rebase/master doesn't boot on 32bit PAE, but it works on x86_64.

I bet and hope these issues will be sorted out shortly.. :)

-- Pasi

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