[Testday] Arch Linux Test report

[Testday] Arch Linux Test report

[Julian Sivertsen]

== Hardware ==
HP DL380 G5 (2x Intel Xeon 5130)

== Dom0 ==
Arch Linux 64-bit

== Functionality tested ==
Building xen 4.5 RC4 from the tarball, installing it and booting it up
with Arch Linux as the Dom0.

== Comments ==
Xen support on Arch Linux needs a bit of love. Nummerous problems
getting the build to work properly. These issues mainly concerrns
building and installing the xen-4.5-RC4 tarball on Arch Linux. They
would all be solved by the package maintainer of xen, but still presents
a challange for anyone who would want to build xen outside of the
Arch Linux package system. More test reports may follow once I get
guests to run on the system.

== Issues ===
Brief: Invalid FETCHER by ./configure
Importance: nuisance
Location: xen
Workaround: Install wget and reconfigure
The m4/fetcher.m4 script checks for the precence of wget before falling
back to "ftp -o". On Arch Linux curl is shipped and ftp does not support
the -o option. Resulting in the build failing when downloading zlib.

Brief: Grub script does not generate any entries for xen
Importance: low
Location: grub
Workaround: `echo CONFIG_XEN_DOM0=y > /boot/config-linux`
The 20_linux_xen grub configuration helper script shipped in the grub
package in Arch Linux does not generate any entries for xen after it is
installed as it expects a kernel config file to be present. It checks
for CONFIG_XEN_DOM0=y in this kernel config file to dertermine whether
or not the kernel in question supports being runned as a DOM0 under xen.
Additionally the variable ${alt_version} is used before it is defined.
Both of these issues are present in upstream grub.

Brief: error: context option is invalid
Importance: medium
location: unknown
Workaround: Edit out ",context=${...}" in var-lib-xenstored.mount
The context option is not understood somewhere between mount and the
kernel. Possibly SELinux specific, since the default Arch Linux kernel
does not ship with it.

Brief: libxenctrl.so.4.5 not found
Importance: low
Location: probably Arch Linux
Workaround: `echo /usr/local/lib > /etc/ld.so.conf.d/xen.cnf; ldconfig`
Something about the library path is messed up, as oxenstored fails when
launched by systemd. It needs the shared library libxenctrl.so.4.5 which
is located in the /usr/local/lib folder, but doesn't find it.


Julian Sivertsen

Re: [Testday] Arch Linux Test report

[Olaf Hering]

On Thu, Dec 18, Julian Sivertsen wrote:

> == Issues ===
> Brief: Invalid FETCHER by ./configure
> Importance: nuisance
> Location: xen
> Workaround: Install wget and reconfigure
> The m4/fetcher.m4 script checks for the precence of wget before falling
> back to "ftp -o". On Arch Linux curl is shipped and ftp does not support
> the -o option. Resulting in the build failing when downloading zlib.

The requirement for wget or ftp is indeed not mentioned in README or
INSTALL.

> Brief: libxenctrl.so.4.5 not found
> Importance: low
> Location: probably Arch Linux
> Workaround: `echo /usr/local/lib > /etc/ld.so.conf.d/xen.cnf; ldconfig`
> Something about the library path is messed up, as oxenstored fails when
> launched by systemd. It needs the shared library libxenctrl.so.4.5 which
> is located in the /usr/local/lib folder, but doesn't find it.

Fix Arch Linux and add /usr/local/lib to the default /etc/ld.so.conf.
Workaround: ./configure --enable-rpath

Olaf

Re: [Testday] Arch Linux Test report

[David Sutton]

Julian Sivertsen <julian.sivertsen+xen <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> == Hardware ==
> HP DL380 G5 (2x Intel Xeon 5130)
> 
> == Dom0 ==
> Arch Linux 64-bit
> 
> == Functionality tested ==
> Building xen 4.5 RC4 from the tarball, installing it and booting it up
> with Arch Linux as the Dom0.
> 
> == Comments ==
> Xen support on Arch Linux needs a bit of love. Nummerous problems
> getting the build to work properly. These issues mainly concerrns
> building and installing the xen-4.5-RC4 tarball on Arch Linux. They
> would all be solved by the package maintainer of xen, but still 
presents
> a challange for anyone who would want to build xen outside of the
> Arch Linux package system. More test reports may follow once I get
> guests to run on the system.
> 
> == Issues ===
> Brief: Invalid FETCHER by ./configure
> Importance: nuisance
> Location: xen
> Workaround: Install wget and reconfigure
> The m4/fetcher.m4 script checks for the precence of wget before 
falling
> back to "ftp -o". On Arch Linux curl is shipped and ftp does not 
support
> the -o option. Resulting in the build failing when downloading zlib.
>
The xen package under AUR already works around this issue by downloading 
all the necessary supporting tar files itself - I preferred this method 
as it allows me to make use of file checkAsums to ensure that the 
downloads all completed correctly. If a different file were to become 
added that it wasn't aware of, the package has 'wget' listed as a build 
dependency.

As was already mentioned by Olaf, that would be a documentation issue as 
it should list it as an explicit dependency.
>
> Brief: Grub script does not generate any entries for xen
> Importance: low
> Location: grub
> Workaround: `echo CONFIG_XEN_DOM0=y > /boot/config-linux`
> The 20_linux_xen grub configuration helper script shipped in the grub
> package in Arch Linux does not generate any entries for xen after it 
is
> installed as it expects a kernel config file to be present. It checks
> for CONFIG_XEN_DOM0=y in this kernel config file to dertermine whether
> or not the kernel in question supports being runned as a DOM0 under 
xen.
> Additionally the variable ${alt_version} is used before it is defined.
> Both of these issues are present in upstream grub.
>
As we discussed on the xentest irc channel that day, there is already an 
updated configuration file included in the xen AUR package that gets 
installed and will work for grub2. 
>
> Brief: error: context option is invalid
> Importance: medium
> location: unknown
> Workaround: Edit out ",context=${...}" in var-lib-xenstored.mount
> The context option is not understood somewhere between mount and the
> kernel. Possibly SELinux specific, since the default Arch Linux kernel
> does not ship with it.
> 
> Brief: libxenctrl.so.4.5 not found
> Importance: low
> Location: probably Arch Linux
> Workaround: `echo /usr/local/lib > /etc/ld.so.conf.d/xen.cnf; 
ldconfig`
> Something about the library path is messed up, as oxenstored fails 
when
> launched by systemd. It needs the shared library libxenctrl.so.4.5 
which
> is located in the /usr/local/lib folder, but doesn't find it.
> 
> Julian Sivertsen
> 

Regards,

  David