Re: [Xen-users] at the end of my wits

["Chris Fanning" <christopher.fanning@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

> > I have determined that my problem seems to be occuring during the
> > ramdisk's (initrd) loading of modules, before the kernel even gets to
> > start booting.  There's problems with the ata drivers.  The thing is,
> > no amount of remaking or fiddling with my initrd contents seems to fix
> > this, but I'm no Linux guru so maybe there is a fix.
> >
I'm no expert either. although we seem to have the same problem, I
think mine is IRQ related.

comparing dmesg and cat /proc/interrupts I could see (from memory)
that the sata device conflicted with pci-x bus, so I changed the sata
setting in the bios to compatible (S-ATA only).
a USB hub conflicted with pci-x video card, so I disactivated usb
funcionality in the bios.
One NIC conflicted with an IRQ that I could see come up during boot
using dmesg, but wasn't present in /proc/interrupts, so I removed it
anyway and activated the onboard NIC. (luckily that didn't create any
new conflicts).
So, now I've got s server with no cdrom or usb, but Xen boots 100% of
the time! (fingers crossed).
After looking at sooo many threads I get the feeling that the
hipervisor or dom0 (I don't know which), gets a corrupt acpi table
from the bios.

> > Chris, does your system use an initrd or does it boot straight from
> > the kernel?  This might be useful information, although I don't know
> > what it would tell us at this point.
I'm not too up on the boot process.
kernel /xen.gz dom0_mem=512M
module /vmlinuz-2.6.18-xen root=/dev/md2 ro console=tty0
module /initrd.img-xen-3.1.0

I think the hipervisor boots (don't know how) and calls dom0 which
then boots itself on the initramfs. or something like that.

> > I have determined that my problem seems to be occuring during the
> > ramdisk's (initrd) loading of modules,
Same here, it all happens before the switchroot.

Hey Steve, if you've still got that machine around and can be
bothered, who knows?
I seemed to have stumbled out of a problem I still can believe I really had!

Anyway, I've had two of these bad eggs in a row (I still haven't tried
this on p5pdelux) and it makes me wonder what I should be looking out
for when I buy a motherboard.
God's blessing?

Cheers.
Chris.

On 7/3/07, David Greenberg <dgrnbrg@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> I believe that certain parts of the chipset are unsupported in kernel
> 2.6.18.  Ubuntu feisty has Xen ported to 2.6.19, and that will successfully
> boot on the Asus motherboard 100% of the time.  I got it to boot and
> recognize all 7 internal sata drives I was using.  There is a potential bug
> that may affect you if you use driver domains, however.  I didn't isolate
> the bug, but be aware that it potentially exists (softraid corruption when
> using a driver domain with 6 usb controllers and the only graphics card
> passed to it).
>
> Cheers,
> David
>
>
> On 7/3/07, Steve Brueckner <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Chris Fanning wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > I'm at the end of my wits.
> > > I desperately need some ideas.
> > >
> > > Not long ago I posted here with problems booting xen on a P5Pdeluxe
> > > motherboard.
> > > When I boot this machine with vanilla debian etch, there are no
> > > problems.
> > >
> > > ata1: SATA link up 3,0 Gpb (SStatus 123 Scontrol 200)
> > > ata1: qc timeout (cmd 0xec)
> > > ata1: failed to identify (I/0 error, err_mask = 0x0104)
> > > ata1: port is slow to resond, please be patient
> > > ata1: failes to respond (30 secs)
> > > ata1: COMRESET failed, device not ready
> > > ata1: hardreset failded
> > >
> > > But this doesn't always happen. 50% of the time, the process stalls
> > > for about 6 secs on.
> > > ACP: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.2[B] -> GSI 19 (low level) -> IRQ 18
> > > And then continues correctly.
> > >
> > > The machine also stalls during boot at usb hub detection, and NIC
> > > detection (or loading module).
> > >
> > > Well, I gave up, thought it was some weird hardware issue, and
> > > decided to use that machine as my own PC (because it boots etch just
> > > fine).
> > >
> > > So I started afresh with an asus P5LD2 and I've got exactly the same
> > > problem.!!
> > >
> > > The only thing that these two machines have in common is the
> > > powercord and I've changed that too!
> > >
> > > I'm not new to Xen, I've installed at least 15 since 3.0.1 These
> > > problems occur with my own compiled kernels and the debian packaged
> > > kernels.
> > >
> > > Any ideas please?
> > >
> > > Chris.
> >
> > Sorry, no help from me.  I just wanted to say I'm still in the same
> > boat as you, although I use Fedora and a Dell Optiplex 745 machine.
> >
> > Mine boots about 5% of the time; I wish it would boot 50% of the time!
> > My errors are similar to yours but not identical due to different
> > distro.  I can boot the vanilla Fedora 7 kernel, but not the Fedora 7
> > Xen kernel package or the manually compiled Xen kernel.
> >
> > What do we have in common?  Error messages during or immediately
> > before or after ata detection.  Both the 965 and 945 chipsets lack
> > native ata support, so it's either not present (in my case) or tacked
> > on with a 3rd party device by motherboard manufacturers (in your
> > case).  In both cases, however, it seems Xen can cause a lot of
> > trouble with detecting ata, whether it's physically present or not.
> > Others have posted that Xen works fine with their 965 boards, so
> > unfortunately this isn't a consistent problem.
> >
> > I have determined that my problem seems to be occuring during the
> > ramdisk's (initrd) loading of modules, before the kernel even gets to
> > start booting.  There's problems with the ata drivers.  The thing is,
> > no amount of remaking or fiddling with my initrd contents seems to fix
> > this, but I'm no Linux guru so maybe there is a fix.
> >
> > Chris, does your system use an initrd or does it boot straight from
> > the kernel?  This might be useful information, although I don't know
> > what it would tell us at this point.
> >
> > I believe we've dismissed the previously suggested notion that this is
> > a hardware problem, since you and I have had it on 3 separate models
> > of boards.  I've flashed my BIOS to the latest version, and done as
> > much troubleshooting as I know how, but still no luck fixing it.
> >
> > All I can think to do is wait for the next release of a new Xen kernel.
> > I'd love it if someone could give us a better option, though.
> >
> > Steve Brueckner, ATC-NY
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Xen-users mailing list
> > Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
> >
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