[Xen-users] Gentoo Xen issues (in a Macbook)

["Ignacio Siles" <ignacio.siles@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello, 

I'm trying to deploy Xen in a Gentoo machine (Macbook Core 2 Duo), but I'm
having a lot of questions and issues about installation and operation of
Xen, mainly with backend drivers. The Macbook will not be the final
production machine, but it's my only testing machine available now with
Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

The info is:

        - Machine: Macbook Core 2 Duo, it's hardware is well known, but if
needed I'll post later my lspci. It has T7200 Core 2 Duo with Intel VT, SATA
disk with Intel ICH7 controller, and Intel Gigabit Ethernet. 

        - Gentoo: Installed from 2007.0, with 2.6.20.1 for normal kernel,
and 2.6.20-r6 for xenfied kernel. With normal kernel, all is working: Gnome
2.20 with 3D acceleration, sound, disks, keyboard, touchpad, network (only
with Ethernet, I'm not trying Atheros Wifi at the moment). I'm not using
initrd, my kernel have only the controllers I need, and very few modules.
So, SCSI support, SATA drivers for Intel ICH7 and ext2/ext3, Intel GMA950
are inside the kernel, not compiled as modules.
        
        - Xen: I emerged latest available version, 3.1.2, with xen-tools. No
problem with compile and installation (emerge didn't complaint). To generate
the xen dom0 kernel, I used my working kernel adding usual dom0 options,
like privileged domain, Virtual PCI, backend drivers.

My goal is to get domUs with graphical support (planned to use X/Gnome in
that virtual machines). At first state, I'm planning to store VM in files,
maybe later I'll migrate them to separate partitions (my macbook have only
one hard disk).

Well, my questions / issues:

        - After installation and basic configuration, I added xend to
default rc, and then rebooted. I always get some error when I start xend (or
its started at boot), mainly with blktap: if I generate a dom0 kernel with
only backend drivers (as told in Gentoo Xen How To), xend says blktap0 is
already mounted. But if I use a dom0 kernel with backend drivers in kernel
and fronted drivers as modules, xend complaints about not available slot to
mount blktap0. Is there any way to check status of /dev/blktap0?

        - When I try to start VM (images downloaded from web), or create it
with domi, I get non-successful boots, always failed detecting boot
partition inside domU (the known kernel panic about not finding correct boot
partition). I tried with 'file:/var/lib/xen/fedora.img' as sda1, or
'tap:aio:/var/lib/xen/fedora.img' as xvda or xvda1, but with no luck. I
suspect from the above error with blktap0, but I'm not sure if my dom0 is
giving right filesystem to domU. Any method / utility to check that?

        - My last movement was to install Virtual Manager (which is in the
portage tree), and use virt-install tool to create the VM. When I try that,
with Fedora 7 as domU, in the boot sequence I get timeouts for vkb0 and vb0
(virtual keyboard and net, I suppose), and the well known kernel panic abot
hotplug scripts not working (but I get that with vkbd0), and I didn't found
much information about that. What could I check? Dom0 hotplug scripts are
working well, as far I know.Maybe I need to add some options to my kernel?

I'm getting stuck at that point, I'm not sure about my kernel dom0 config,
maybe someone can post a working dom0 kernel config with gentoo?

Thanks for your patience reading this, english is not my mother tongue ;-)

Ignacio Siles


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