Re: DomU crashing on x86

[David F Barrera <dfbp@us.ibm.com>]

On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 14:55 -0700, Nivedita Singhvi wrote:
> David F Barrera wrote:
> > We are seeing a problem in xen-unstable where DomU crashes immediately
> > after booting on some x86 boxes. In my case, it is happening on a couple
> > of machines that have SCSI drives and where DomU is a SLES 9
> > installation. Here's some data on my setup:
> > 
> > 		Dom0		DomU		Dom U Crash? 	SCSI
> > 
> > Machine A	SLES 9		SLES 9		Yes		Yes
> > Machine B	SLES 9 		RHEL 4		No		Yes
> > Machine C	RHEL 4		SLES 9		Yes		Yes
> > Machine D	FC3	  SLES 9 and Debian	No		No
> > 						
> > The only thing I see in common in the machines that fail is the SCSI
> > drives.  Machines B and C are identical; the others are different
> > models.
> 
> Dave, what are your boot options?

The boot options for DomU are:

# Kernel image file.
kernel = "/boot/vmlinuz-2.6-xenU"
# Optional ramdisk.
# ramdisk = "/boot/initrd-2.6.12-xenU"
# The domain build function. Default is 'linux'.
builder='linux'
# Initial memory allocation (in megabytes) for the new domain.
memory = 256
# A name for your domain. All domains must have different names.
name = "vm1"
disk = [ 'phy:sda9,0809,w','phy:sda8,0808,w' ]
# Set if you want dhcp to allocate the IP address.
# vif = [ 'mac= AA:00:00:47:CB:34, bridge=xen-br0' ]
# Set if you want dhcp to allocate the IP address.
#dhcp="dhcp"
# Set netmask.
#netmask = '255.255.255.0'
# Set default gateway.
# gateway = '9.53.94.0'
# Set the hostname.
# hostname= "vm%d" % vmid


# Set root device.
root = "/dev/sda9 ro"
# Sets runlevel 4.
# extra = "4"
#============================================================================

> thanks,
> Nivedita
> 
> > This is the Oops info that I am seeing (no other info is displayed):
> > 
> > Oops:   0002 [#1]
> > PREEMPT SMP modules linked in:
> > CPU:    0
> > EIP:    0061:[<00244ec0>]       Not tainted VLI
> > 
> > 
> > David Wolinsky (david_wolinsky@dell.com) has also reported seeing the
> > problem:
> > 
> > ------- Additional Comments From david_wolinsky@dell.com  2005-07-13
> > 21:26 -------
> > I put together a testing suite to figure out the problem… and it seems
> > related 
> > to two parts of my machine.
> > 
> > A)  Fedora Core 3
> > B)  SATA drive (as you are probably aware these use the same scsi
> > driver)
> > 
> > To test A out, I installed Debian (known for its stability, etc)… And
> > ran with 
> > SATA in SATA mode and in IDE emulation mode (cominbation mode as listed
> > in the 
> > bios)… both tests passed (not concrete, I only ran it as long as I had
> > known 
> > the test of Fedora Core to last… I'll run it over night for 100%).  
> > 
> > To test B out, I set my SATA mode into IDE emulation mode and ran it in
> > FC3, 
> > this time it crashed the DomU and not Dom0.
> > 
> > My conclusion is... an issue between the SCSI driver, Xen hypervisor,
> > and the 
> > memory driver
> > -------------------end of David Wolinsky's comments ---------------
> > 
> > Has anyone else observed this problem?  I believe this is a serious
> > problem that requires some attention.
> > 
> 
> 
-- 
Regards,

David F Barrera
Linux Technology Center
Systems and Technology Group, IBM

"The wisest men follow their own direction. "
                                                        Euripides