Xen kernel issue

Xen kernel issue

[Travis Newman]

I've gotten Xen working for dom0, but I haven't gone past that because 
when using the Xen kernel, there's no support for fat filesystems (which 
contain a lot of what I need, though I don't use Windows anymore, I 
don't have the space to backup everything to format to ext3) and no 
support for sound. I'm using Alsa by the way. I've tried to recompile 
the kernel in different ways. First off, I tried "make ARCH=xen xconfig" 
and enabling what I needed, "make ARCH=xen oldconfig" after restoring my 
.config from my current kernel, and finally, using mkbuildtree to 
xen-ify my kernel source (2.6.10) and then loading the .config from 
xconfig. None of these worked, they would keep failing for different 
reasons. I can be more specific if I need to, I'm just wondering what 
the "right way" to get the exact same options that are in my kernel now, 
along with the xen options.

I'm using Ubuntu Linux (a Debian variant), and though I'm using a stock 
kernel, I have had experience with compiling my own kernel before.

Thanks in advance!
Travis


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Re: Xen kernel issue

[Travis Newman]

Sorry to keep posting, just wanted to update this on where I am now.

> I've gotten Xen working for dom0, but I haven't gone past that because 
> when using the Xen kernel, there's no support for fat filesystems (which 
> contain a lot of what I need, though I don't use Windows anymore, I 
> don't have the space to backup everything to format to ext3) and no 
> support for sound. I'm using Alsa by the way. I've tried to recompile 
> the kernel in different ways. First off, I tried "make ARCH=xen xconfig" 
> and enabling what I needed, "make ARCH=xen oldconfig" after restoring my 
> .config from my current kernel, and finally, using mkbuildtree to 
> xen-ify my kernel source (2.6.10) and then loading the .config from 
> xconfig. None of these worked, they would keep failing for different 
> reasons. I can be more specific if I need to, I'm just wondering what 
> the "right way" to get the exact same options that are in my kernel now, 
> along with the xen options.
> 
> I'm using Ubuntu Linux (a Debian variant), and though I'm using a stock 
> kernel, I have had experience with compiling my own kernel before.
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> Travis

I installed Fedora Core 3, which from what I heard was much easier to 
get things going in. I saw that I had to be running the devel release to 
get the rpms from the yum repository, so I changed my yum.conf, and got 
them installed.
Only problem is, it broke yum, up2date, and system-config-packages 
because of a new version of python. Maybe I had to be running EVERYTHING 
development, I don't know. Anyway, the kernel from the Fedora packages 
doesn't run with Ubuntu AT ALL. I get a kernel panic but it goes away 
before I can read the details. So I'll revise my questions:

Are there prebuilt packages like the ones for Fedora available for 
Debian or any other distributions?

Is there any other way to install the Fedora RPMs than having to upgrade 
a lot of packages to unstable?

When doing things the any-linux way, what's the proper way of getting 
the old .config file to stick with the new config from Xen's setup?

Basically, I really don't care which distro I get it going in, as long 
as vmlinuz-xxx-dom0 has the options I need and it doesn't break the system.

Again, Thanks in advance!

Travis


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Re: Xen kernel issue

[Travis Newman]

Travis Newman wrote:
> Sorry to keep posting, just wanted to update this on where I am now.
> 
>> I've gotten Xen working for dom0, but I haven't gone past that because 
>> when using the Xen kernel, there's no support for fat filesystems 

...
>> and no support for sound

Sorry to keep replying to my own posts here, but I think I may have 
figured out something of interest. For a second I thought everything was 
going to work, until I realized I'd left off ARCH=xen this time. make 
oldconfig did exactly what I thought it should. It only asked me a very 
few questions, which I assumed were from missing entries in the config 
file, but that's when I realized I'd left off the ARCH argument. This is 
the point in the documentation when it says it should ask you just a few 
questions about Xen stuff, to which you should leave the defaults. Well 
it did ask those questions, but it also seemed to completely ignore the 
.config file altogether. Just thought that may shed some light on the 
subject.

Again, thanks for putting up with me ;)
Travis


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Re: Re: Xen kernel issue

[Robin Green]

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Travis Newman wrote:

> Sorry to keep posting, just wanted to update this on where I am now.
>
>> I've gotten Xen working for dom0, but I haven't gone past that because when 
>> using the Xen kernel, there's no support for fat filesystems (which contain 
>> a lot of what I need, though I don't use Windows anymore, I don't have the 
>> space to backup everything to format to ext3) and no support for sound. I'm 
>> using Alsa by the way. I've tried to recompile the kernel in different 
>> ways. First off, I tried "make ARCH=xen xconfig" and enabling what I 
>> needed, "make ARCH=xen oldconfig" after restoring my .config from my 
>> current kernel, and finally, using mkbuildtree to xen-ify my kernel source 
>> (2.6.10) and then loading the .config from xconfig. None of these worked, 
>> they would keep failing for different reasons. I can be more specific if I 
>> need to, I'm just wondering what the "right way" to get the exact same 
>> options that are in my kernel now, along with the xen options.
>> 
>> I'm using Ubuntu Linux (a Debian variant), and though I'm using a stock 
>> kernel, I have had experience with compiling my own kernel before.
>> 
>> Thanks in advance!
>> Travis
>
> I installed Fedora Core 3, which from what I heard was much easier to get 
> things going in. I saw that I had to be running the devel release to get the 
> rpms from the yum repository, so I changed my yum.conf, and got them 
> installed.

Yeah, don't do that :)

> Only problem is, it broke yum, up2date, and system-config-packages because of 
> a new version of python. Maybe I had to be running EVERYTHING development, I 
> don't know.

No, you don't. All you have to do from that broken state is:

a) reinstall your old python with

rpm -ivh --force [insert location of old python rpm]

b) Change the first line in /usr/sbin/xend to read
#!/usr/bin/env python2.4

That should be enough to get you up and running. You'll probably have to 
make the same change to some other scripts, like /usr/sbin/xensv

-- 
Robin



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Re: Re: Xen kernel issue

[Mark Williamson]

> Are there prebuilt packages like the ones for Fedora available for
> Debian or any other distributions?

Adam Heath was working on the official Debian Xen 2.0 packages, so if they're 
not in testing / unstable, they will be at some point.

> When doing things the any-linux way, what's the proper way of getting
> the old .config file to stick with the new config from Xen's setup?

Try the following in the xen repository:
cp /your/old/config/file dist/install/boot/config-xxx-xen0
make dist

> Basically, I really don't care which distro I get it going in, as long
> as vmlinuz-xxx-dom0 has the options I need and it doesn't break the system.

The above should work.  You mentioned in an earlier post that you'd done a 
make xconfig in the Linux directory - if you do that, you'll need to copy out 
the .config file to the path I mentioned above.  Otherwise it'll get 
overwritten (by the file that happens to be at that path) when you make 
dist / world.

HTH,
Mark


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Re: Re: Xen kernel issue

[Travis Newman]

> The above should work.  You mentioned in an earlier post that you'd done a 
> make xconfig in the Linux directory - if you do that, you'll need to copy out 
> the .config file to the path I mentioned above.  Otherwise it'll get 
> overwritten (by the file that happens to be at that path) when you make 
> dist / world.

Another thing throwing me for a loop is that whenever I do manage to 
config the kernel and start building it (when I have made the changes I 
want to it) It gives me the following error, but this error does NOT 
come up if I don't change the default config.

   CC      drivers/xen/balloon/balloon.o
drivers/xen/balloon/balloon.c: In function `balloon_process':
drivers/xen/balloon/balloon.c:209: error: `phys_to_machine_mapping' 
undeclared (first use in this function)
drivers/xen/balloon/balloon.c:209: error: (Each undeclared identifier is 
reported only once
drivers/xen/balloon/balloon.c:209: error: for each function it appears in.)
drivers/xen/balloon/balloon.c:209: error: `INVALID_P2M_ENTRY' undeclared 
(first use in this function)
drivers/xen/balloon/balloon.c:253: warning: implicit declaration of 
function `scrub_pages'
make[3]: *** [drivers/xen/balloon/balloon.o] Error 1
make[2]: *** [drivers/xen/balloon] Error 2
make[1]: *** [drivers/xen] Error 2
make: *** [drivers] Error 2

So again, I am out of ideas... I can't use the default config because of 
a lack of features, but I can't change it because of errors... Unless 
there's something I'm missing somewhere (Which there very well may be) 
or something about my system is screwy.

So any help or pre-built kernels anyone wants to provide will be greatly 
appreciated :)


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Re: Re: Xen kernel issue

[Robin Green]

On Tue, 1 Feb 2005, Travis Newman wrote:
> OK just to let you know, that rpm command didn't work. Modifying it to
> also include --nodeps installed it, but yum and others still don't
> work.
> Is there any way to use the fedora rpms without hosing the system like
> I did? If so it's no bother to reinstall Fedora, since I only
> installed it to test anyway.

Ah OK, I did it a slightly different way in reality, which should work for
you as well if you reinstall. What I did was basically, from an (almost) 
fresh install of fc3:

rpm -ivh --force [location of python 2.4]
cd /usr/bin/
ln -nsf python2.3 python   # this makes python 2.3 the default again
   # note there must be TWO > signs on the next line:
echo 'gpgcheck=0' >>/etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-devel.repo
yum --enablerepo=development install kernel-xen0 kernel-xenU xen

and then changed the first line of /usr/sbin/xend as previously mentioned.

If you install python 2.4 first, then the yum command shouldn't mess up 
your system at all. Unless there's something else I'm forgetting, and I 
don't think there is. Still, check that it's not trying to upgrade 
anything important before saying 'y' to the yum command.

Happy xenning,
-- 
Robin


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