Freeze schedule

Freeze schedule

[Ian Jackson]

So far we haven't been very good about writing down our freeze policy.
Here is a proposal with some suggestions and projected dates:

  31 Dec
  Feature submission freeze

    Ie, deadline for first version of new feature patches.  New
    feature patches posted before this point can be committed
    afterwards if they need the time to get into shape.  Anything
    not posted at all before this point has missed the boat.

  All queued patches applied, but no later than 14 Jan
  Feature code freeze

    New feature patches not committed after this point; anything
    intended for 4.1 not in a good final form by this point has
    missed the boat.

    RC1 at this point, unless serious or blocking bugs are present.

  31 Jan  Slushy code freeze

    No further patches unless they either
        - fix an important bug; or
        - are very trivial and low-risk.

    All patches to receive an ack from a maintainer other than the
    committer.

  14 Feb  Hard code freeze

    No further patches other than for release-critical bugs.

    All patches to receive an ack from a maintainer other than the
    committer.

  28 Feb  Release.

In all cases, the plan is subject to modification, and to the making
of freeze exceptions by the maintainers following consultation.

Ian.

Re: Freeze schedule

[Ian Jackson]

After consultation with Keir, here's a revised proposal:

  Feature submission freeze
  after 31 Dec

    New feature patches posted before this point can be committed
    afterwards if they needed the time to get into shape.

    New features not previously posted have missed the boat.

    Bugfixes are allowed.

  Feature code freeze
  after all queued patches applied
  but at the latest 14 Jan
  RC1 at this point, unless serious or blocking bugs are present.

    Bugfixes are allowed provided they are not high-risk.

    No new features will be committed.

  Slushy code freeze
  after 28 Jan  

    Bugfixes are allowed but only if they either:
        - fix an important bug; or
        - are very trivial and low-risk.

    All changes to receive a formal ack from a maintainer other than
    the committer.

  Hard code freeze
  after 7 Feb  

    No further patches other than for release-critical bugs.

    All changes to receive a formal ack from a maintainer other than
    the committer.

  Release.
  planned for 14 Feb

  In all cases, the plan is subject to modification, and to the making
  of freeze exceptions by the maintainers following consultation.

Ian.

Re: Freeze schedule

[Ian Jackson]

I wrote:
>   Feature code freeze
>   after all queued patches applied

All the outstanding patches from before the feature submission freeze
are now in xen-unstable.  We hope to tag Xen 4.1.0 RC1 tomorrow,
assuming we get a pass and push from the automatic tests.

>From this point on:

>     Bugfixes are allowed provided they are not high-risk.
> 
>     No new features will be committed.

New features, and high-risk or intrusive bugfixes, will be deferred to
the 4.2 release cycle.

Ian.

Re: Freeze schedule

[Jan Beulich]

>>> On 11.01.11 at 20:43, Ian Jackson <Ian.Jackson@eu.citrix.com> wrote:
> I wrote:
>>   Feature code freeze
>>   after all queued patches applied
> 
> All the outstanding patches from before the feature submission freeze
> are now in xen-unstable.  We hope to tag Xen 4.1.0 RC1 tomorrow,
> assuming we get a pass and push from the automatic tests.

That's the main thing - getting currently queued things pushed out
of staging. But the latest test results look all but promising.

I'm actually having one larger cleanup patch (eliminating over 300
lines of defacto dead code) pending which I had hoped to get into
4.1, but which I wouldn't want to submit without having applied/
built/run on top of up-to-date non-staging bits.

Jan

Re: Re: Freeze schedule

[Keir Fraser]

On 12/01/2011 08:11, "Jan Beulich" <JBeulich@novell.com> wrote:

>> All the outstanding patches from before the feature submission freeze
>> are now in xen-unstable.  We hope to tag Xen 4.1.0 RC1 tomorrow,
>> assuming we get a pass and push from the automatic tests.
> 
> That's the main thing - getting currently queued things pushed out
> of staging. But the latest test results look all but promising.

My suspicion is that this is due to a dom0 kernel issue. Not sure how
sensible it is to try to stabilise Xen bits against a moving kernel. Does
pv_ops have an actually stable 'stable' branch yet?

> I'm actually having one larger cleanup patch (eliminating over 300
> lines of defacto dead code) pending which I had hoped to get into
> 4.1, but which I wouldn't want to submit without having applied/
> built/run on top of up-to-date non-staging bits.

If it doesn't fix bugs or implement something new we really care about a
lot, it can wait for 4.2 development to start, I'm sure. That said I expect
you can in fact test your patch against a known-good dom0 kernel and latest
xen-unstable bits.

 -- Keir

Re: Re: Freeze schedule

[Ian Jackson]

Keir Fraser writes ("Re: [Xen-devel] Re: Freeze schedule"):
> My suspicion is that this is due to a dom0 kernel issue. Not sure how
> sensible it is to try to stabilise Xen bits against a moving kernel. Does
> pv_ops have an actually stable 'stable' branch yet?

We are using the pvops nominally-stable branch and furthermore, the
automated tests have a separate push gate for the dom0 kernel.

And, the same boot failure happens with the XCP kernel too.  So I'm
pretty sure it's Xen problem.

See a stack trace from one of the logs, below.

Ian.

From, eg,
   http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~xensrcts/logs/4899/test-amd64-i386-xl/info.html
for which the corresponding build (including symbols files) is at:
   http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~xensrcts/logs/4899/build-amd64/info.html
specifically
   http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~xensrcts/logs/4899/build-amd64/build/xendist.tar.gz

Jan 12 03:06:42 (XEN) Early fatal page fault at e008:ffff82c480114c9f (cr2=ffff82c400000404, ec=
Jan 12 03:06:42 0002)
Jan 12 03:06:42 (XEN) Stack dump: 0000000000000000 ffff82f600000000 ffff82f600002020 00000000000
Jan 12 03:06:42 00000 ffff82c480297d98 0000000000000101 0180000000000000 0100000000000000 ffff82
Jan 12 03:06:42 c400000404 ffff828000000808 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 ffffffffffffffff f
Jan 12 03:06:42 fff82f600002020 0000000000000000 0000000000000002 ffff82c480114c9f 000000000000e
Jan 12 03:06:42 008 0000000000010093 ffff82c480297d48 0000000000000000 ffff82c480114bd0 ffff82c4
Jan 12 03:06:42 802cb580 0000000100000001 0000000000003000 0000000000000008 0000000000000008 000
Jan 12 03:06:42 0000000000000 0000000000101000 ffff82c4802abd00 ffff82f600002020 0000000000000ef
Jan 12 03:06:42 f ffff82c480297de8 ffff82c480116a6a 0000000000000040 0000000000000000 0000000000
Jan 12 03:06:42 000fff ffff830000100000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 ffff83021b74e000 fffff
Jan 12 03:06:42 fffffffffff ffff82c480297e28 ffff82c480260e79 0000000080297e28 00000000001ffe2a
Jan 12 03:06:42 0000000000000002 000004ffffffffff ffff830000000000 000000000000000d ffff82c48029
Jan 12 03:06:42 7f08 ffff82c48027ae6a 00000000002d4d80 0000000000000000 000000000007bf30 0000000
Jan 12 03:06:42 000000000 0000000000000000 ffff83000007bd70 ffff83000007bfb0 ffff83000007bf30 00
Jan 12 03:06:42 00000000868000 0100000000000000 00000000dfa00000 0000000000000000 00000000000000
Jan 12 03:06:42 00 ffff82c48028b168 ffffffff00000000 0000000001000000 0000000800000000 000000010
Jan 12 03:06:42 000006e 0000000000000003 00000000000002f8 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000
Jan 12 03:06:42 000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000067e9c
Jan 12 03:06:42  ffff82c4801000b5 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 00000000000
Jan 12 03:06:42 00000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 000000
Jan 12 03:06:42 0000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0
Jan 12 03:06:42 000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000
Jan 12 03:06:42 000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 00000000
Jan 12 03:06:42 00000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 00000000fffff000 000

Re: Re: Freeze schedule

[Keir Fraser]

On 12/01/2011 11:29, "Ian Jackson" <Ian.Jackson@eu.citrix.com> wrote:

> Keir Fraser writes ("Re: [Xen-devel] Re: Freeze schedule"):
>> My suspicion is that this is due to a dom0 kernel issue. Not sure how
>> sensible it is to try to stabilise Xen bits against a moving kernel. Does
>> pv_ops have an actually stable 'stable' branch yet?
> 
> We are using the pvops nominally-stable branch and furthermore, the
> automated tests have a separate push gate for the dom0 kernel.
> 
> And, the same boot failure happens with the XCP kernel too.  So I'm
> pretty sure it's Xen problem.
> 
> See a stack trace from one of the logs, below.

Yep, that one's fixed now. Not sure why I didn't find that in the logs. I
found what looked like a hang during dom0 kernel boot, but I must have been
looking at the wrong thing.

 -- Keir

> Ian.
> 
> From, eg,
>    
> http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~xensrcts/logs/4899/test-amd64-i386-xl/info.
> html
> for which the corresponding build (including symbols files) is at:
>    http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~xensrcts/logs/4899/build-amd64/info.html
> specifically
>    
> http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~xensrcts/logs/4899/build-amd64/build/xendis
> t.tar.gz
> 
> Jan 12 03:06:42 (XEN) Early fatal page fault at e008:ffff82c480114c9f
> (cr2=ffff82c400000404, ec=
> Jan 12 03:06:42 0002)
> Jan 12 03:06:42 (XEN) Stack dump: 0000000000000000 ffff82f600000000
> ffff82f600002020 00000000000
> Jan 12 03:06:42 00000 ffff82c480297d98 0000000000000101 0180000000000000
> 0100000000000000 ffff82
> Jan 12 03:06:42 c400000404 ffff828000000808 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
> ffffffffffffffff f
> Jan 12 03:06:42 fff82f600002020 0000000000000000 0000000000000002
> ffff82c480114c9f 000000000000e
> Jan 12 03:06:42 008 0000000000010093 ffff82c480297d48 0000000000000000
> ffff82c480114bd0 ffff82c4
> Jan 12 03:06:42 802cb580 0000000100000001 0000000000003000 0000000000000008
> 0000000000000008 000
> Jan 12 03:06:42 0000000000000 0000000000101000 ffff82c4802abd00
> ffff82f600002020 0000000000000ef
> Jan 12 03:06:42 f ffff82c480297de8 ffff82c480116a6a 0000000000000040
> 0000000000000000 0000000000
> Jan 12 03:06:42 000fff ffff830000100000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
> ffff83021b74e000 fffff
> Jan 12 03:06:42 fffffffffff ffff82c480297e28 ffff82c480260e79 0000000080297e28
> 00000000001ffe2a
> Jan 12 03:06:42 0000000000000002 000004ffffffffff ffff830000000000
> 000000000000000d ffff82c48029
> Jan 12 03:06:42 7f08 ffff82c48027ae6a 00000000002d4d80 0000000000000000
> 000000000007bf30 0000000
> Jan 12 03:06:42 000000000 0000000000000000 ffff83000007bd70 ffff83000007bfb0
> ffff83000007bf30 00
> Jan 12 03:06:42 00000000868000 0100000000000000 00000000dfa00000
> 0000000000000000 00000000000000
> Jan 12 03:06:42 00 ffff82c48028b168 ffffffff00000000 0000000001000000
> 0000000800000000 000000010
> Jan 12 03:06:42 000006e 0000000000000003 00000000000002f8 0000000000000000
> 0000000000000000 0000
> Jan 12 03:06:42 000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
> 0000000000000000 0000000000067e9c
> Jan 12 03:06:42  ffff82c4801000b5 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
> 0000000000000000 00000000000
> Jan 12 03:06:42 00000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
> 0000000000000000 000000
> Jan 12 03:06:42 0000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
> 0000000000000000 0
> Jan 12 03:06:42 000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
> 0000000000000000 0000000000000
> Jan 12 03:06:42 000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
> 0000000000000000 00000000
> Jan 12 03:06:42 00000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
> 00000000fffff000 000

tmem on 4.1 (was Re: Freeze schedule)

[Jan Beulich]

>>> On 11.01.11 at 19:28, Ian Jackson <Ian.Jackson@eu.citrix.com> wrote:
> After consultation with Keir, here's a revised proposal:
> 
>   Feature submission freeze
>   after 31 Dec
> 
>     New feature patches posted before this point can be committed
>     afterwards if they needed the time to get into shape.
> 
>     New features not previously posted have missed the boat.

Based on 4.0 experience, I'm afraid we'll have to default-disable
tmem again for 4.1, since (to my knowledge) there hasn't been
much (if any) work to eliminate non-order-0 post-boot allocations.

Jan

RE: tmem on 4.1 (was Re: Freeze schedule)

[Dan Magenheimer]

> >>> On 11.01.11 at 19:28, Ian Jackson <Ian.Jackson@eu.citrix.com>
> wrote:
> > After consultation with Keir, here's a revised proposal:
> >
> >   Feature submission freeze
> >   after 31 Dec
> >
> >     New feature patches posted before this point can be committed
> >     afterwards if they needed the time to get into shape.
> >
> >     New features not previously posted have missed the boat.
> 
> Based on 4.0 experience, I'm afraid we'll have to default-disable
> tmem again for 4.1, since (to my knowledge) there hasn't been
> much (if any) work to eliminate non-order-0 post-boot allocations.

I haven't tested it due to other commitments, but didn't someone
(Tim?) submit a patch to change shadow tables to use order-0,
and Keir submit a patch to change domain struct to order-0?
IIRC, that's not everything... I think passthrough uses order>0
still... but I assumed the vast majority of the problem was solved.

If there's evidence to the contrary, I am OK with default-disable.
Until I manage to fight off all the anti-Xen alligators and get the
relatively small tmem changes upstream (c.f. cleancache and
frontswap and kztmem in lkml), the number of Xen tmem users will
remain smallish.

Dan

RE: tmem on 4.1 (was Re: Freeze schedule)

[Jan Beulich]

>>> On 12.01.11 at 19:32, Dan Magenheimer <dan.magenheimer@oracle.com> wrote:
>> >>> On 11.01.11 at 19:28, Ian Jackson <Ian.Jackson@eu.citrix.com>
>> wrote:
>> > After consultation with Keir, here's a revised proposal:
>> >
>> >   Feature submission freeze
>> >   after 31 Dec
>> >
>> >     New feature patches posted before this point can be committed
>> >     afterwards if they needed the time to get into shape.
>> >
>> >     New features not previously posted have missed the boat.
>> 
>> Based on 4.0 experience, I'm afraid we'll have to default-disable
>> tmem again for 4.1, since (to my knowledge) there hasn't been
>> much (if any) work to eliminate non-order-0 post-boot allocations.
> 
> I haven't tested it due to other commitments, but didn't someone
> (Tim?) submit a patch to change shadow tables to use order-0,
> and Keir submit a patch to change domain struct to order-0?

alloc_{domain,vcpu}_struct() use order 1, and both containing
one or more instances of cpumask_t this size is configuration
dependent.

> IIRC, that's not everything... I think passthrough uses order>0
> still... but I assumed the vast majority of the problem was solved.

Yes, pass-through is one violator, domain_create() is another,
all but one allocating d->nr_pirqs sized arrays (the one other
case being even worse in allocating a nr_irqs sized array of
struct timer).

Only the shadow mode case was addressed iirc.

Jan

[PATCH] Re: tmem on 4.1 (was Re: Freeze schedule)

[Tim Deegan]

# HG changeset patch
# User Tim Deegan <Tim.Deegan@citrix.com>
# Date 1295455677 0
# Node ID 497a764d9314a4061440938815f67ef737afc8f0
# Parent  fe8a177ae9cb01cda771ba64cea2c0470cf79cd8
Disable tmem by default for 4.1 release.

Although one major source of order>0 allocations has been removed,
others still remain, so re-disable tmem until the issue can be fixed
properly.

Signed-off-by: Tim Deegan <Tim.Deegan@citrix.com>

diff -r fe8a177ae9cb -r 497a764d9314 xen/common/tmem_xen.c
--- a/xen/common/tmem_xen.c	Wed Jan 19 15:29:04 2011 +0000
+++ b/xen/common/tmem_xen.c	Wed Jan 19 16:47:57 2011 +0000
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
 
 #define EXPORT /* indicates code other modules are dependent upon */
 
-EXPORT bool_t __read_mostly opt_tmem = 1;
+EXPORT bool_t __read_mostly opt_tmem = 0;
 boolean_param("tmem", opt_tmem);
 
 EXPORT bool_t __read_mostly opt_tmem_compress = 0;

RE: [PATCH] Re: tmem on 4.1 (was Re: Freeze schedule)

[Dan Magenheimer]

> Subject: [PATCH] Re: tmem on 4.1 (was [Xen-devel] Re: Freeze schedule)

> Disable tmem by default for 4.1 release.
> 
> Although one major source of order>0 allocations has been removed,
> others still remain, so re-disable tmem until the issue can be fixed
> properly.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Tim Deegan <Tim.Deegan@citrix.com>
> 
> diff -r fe8a177ae9cb -r 497a764d9314 xen/common/tmem_xen.c
> --- a/xen/common/tmem_xen.c	Wed Jan 19 15:29:04 2011 +0000
> +++ b/xen/common/tmem_xen.c	Wed Jan 19 16:47:57 2011 +0000
> @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
> 
>  #define EXPORT /* indicates code other modules are dependent upon */
> 
> -EXPORT bool_t __read_mostly opt_tmem = 1;
> +EXPORT bool_t __read_mostly opt_tmem = 0;
>  boolean_param("tmem", opt_tmem);

Just to check again, has anyone actually seen a problem with
tmem enabled by default recently?  I agree that there is still
theoretically a problem, but there is the same problem with
normal guests doing lots of ballooning as well.  Also, note
that even if tmem defaults to enabled, the problem is impossible
unless a guest enables tmem (or, in the case of SuSE, dom0).
And even if a guest does enable tmem, the problem manifested
largely due to shadow pages using order>0 (now fixed?)...
failure on domain creation can happen for many reasons and
is much less of an issue, true?

Feel free to shoot me down with more evidence, but I have
to at least provide token resistance to this patch.  Distros
might certainly choose to disable it to avoid any risk at
all, but turning it off anymore seems overkill for xen.org
open source Xen IMHO.

Dan

Re: [PATCH] Re: tmem on 4.1 (was Re: Freeze schedule)

[Sander Eikelenboom]

Except for xm dmesg being pretty filled with messages (could be due to loglvl all):

(XEN) [2011-01-16 12:48:33] tmem: all pools frozen for all domains
(XEN) [2011-01-16 12:48:33] tmem: all pools thawed for all domains
(XEN) [2011-01-16 12:48:44] tmem: all pools frozen for all domains
(XEN) [2011-01-16 12:48:44] tmem: all pools thawed for all domains
etc. etc. etc.

I haven't seen any problems so far (without enabling it in guests and testing the actual functionality)

--
Sander



Wednesday, January 19, 2011, 10:38:09 PM, you wrote:

>> Subject: [PATCH] Re: tmem on 4.1 (was [Xen-devel] Re: Freeze schedule)

>> Disable tmem by default for 4.1 release.
>> 
>> Although one major source of order>0 allocations has been removed,
>> others still remain, so re-disable tmem until the issue can be fixed
>> properly.
>> 
>> Signed-off-by: Tim Deegan <Tim.Deegan@citrix.com>
>> 
>> diff -r fe8a177ae9cb -r 497a764d9314 xen/common/tmem_xen.c
>> --- a/xen/common/tmem_xen.c   Wed Jan 19 15:29:04 2011 +0000
>> +++ b/xen/common/tmem_xen.c   Wed Jan 19 16:47:57 2011 +0000
>> @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
>> 
>>  #define EXPORT /* indicates code other modules are dependent upon */
>> 
>> -EXPORT bool_t __read_mostly opt_tmem = 1;
>> +EXPORT bool_t __read_mostly opt_tmem = 0;
>>  boolean_param("tmem", opt_tmem);

> Just to check again, has anyone actually seen a problem with
> tmem enabled by default recently?  I agree that there is still
> theoretically a problem, but there is the same problem with
> normal guests doing lots of ballooning as well.  Also, note
> that even if tmem defaults to enabled, the problem is impossible
> unless a guest enables tmem (or, in the case of SuSE, dom0).
> And even if a guest does enable tmem, the problem manifested
> largely due to shadow pages using order>0 (now fixed?)...
> failure on domain creation can happen for many reasons and
> is much less of an issue, true?

> Feel free to shoot me down with more evidence, but I have
> to at least provide token resistance to this patch.  Distros
> might certainly choose to disable it to avoid any risk at
> all, but turning it off anymore seems overkill for xen.org
> open source Xen IMHO.

> Dan





-- 
Best regards,
 Sander                            mailto:linux@eikelenboom.it

Re: [PATCH] Re: tmem on 4.1 (was Re: Freeze schedule)

[Keir Fraser]

On 19/01/2011 21:38, "Dan Magenheimer" <dan.magenheimer@oracle.com> wrote:

> Just to check again, has anyone actually seen a problem with
> tmem enabled by default recently?  I agree that there is still
> theoretically a problem, but there is the same problem with
> normal guests doing lots of ballooning as well.  Also, note
> that even if tmem defaults to enabled, the problem is impossible
> unless a guest enables tmem (or, in the case of SuSE, dom0).
> And even if a guest does enable tmem, the problem manifested
> largely due to shadow pages using order>0 (now fixed?)...
> failure on domain creation can happen for many reasons and
> is much less of an issue, true?
> 
> Feel free to shoot me down with more evidence, but I have
> to at least provide token resistance to this patch.  Distros
> might certainly choose to disable it to avoid any risk at
> all, but turning it off anymore seems overkill for xen.org
> open source Xen IMHO.

Tbh I was wondering whether anyone is really using it in earnest. No
upstream kernels support it? If noone's using it, who really cares whether
it's enabled or not, apart from its author.

 -- Keir

> Dan

Re: [PATCH] Re: tmem on 4.1 (was Re: Freeze schedule)

[Olivier B.]

Le 20/01/2011 08:17, Keir Fraser a écrit :
> On 19/01/2011 21:38, "Dan Magenheimer"<dan.magenheimer@oracle.com>  wrote:
>
>> Just to check again, has anyone actually seen a problem with
>> tmem enabled by default recently?  I agree that there is still
>> theoretically a problem, but there is the same problem with
>> normal guests doing lots of ballooning as well.  Also, note
>> that even if tmem defaults to enabled, the problem is impossible
>> unless a guest enables tmem (or, in the case of SuSE, dom0).
>> And even if a guest does enable tmem, the problem manifested
>> largely due to shadow pages using order>0 (now fixed?)...
>> failure on domain creation can happen for many reasons and
>> is much less of an issue, true?
>>
>> Feel free to shoot me down with more evidence, but I have
>> to at least provide token resistance to this patch.  Distros
>> might certainly choose to disable it to avoid any risk at
>> all, but turning it off anymore seems overkill for xen.org
>> open source Xen IMHO.
>
> Tbh I was wondering whether anyone is really using it in earnest. No
> upstream kernels support it? If noone's using it, who really cares whether
> it's enabled or not, apart from its author.
>
>   -- Keir
>


Well, it is present but disabled in the new Debian Squeeze kernel... and 
as there is no documentation, there is no chance to see it enabled.

I had to search on the xen lists to find how to enable that.

For example :
http://www.google.fr/search?hl=fr&source=hp&q=tmem_compress

We should maybe add info about tmem on the Xen Wiki, no ?

Olivier

Re: [PATCH] Re: tmem on 4.1 (was Re: Freeze schedule)

[Ian Campbell]

On Thu, 2011-01-20 at 08:07 +0000, Olivier B. wrote:
> Well, it is present but disabled in the new Debian Squeeze kernel... 

Do you really mean the kernel (i.e. Linux) or do you really mean the
hypervisor?

I was not aware of any tmem support (disabled or otherwise) in the
Debian Squeeze Linux _kernel_. It hasn't been deliberately patched in
and it does not appear to be in the xen.git snapshot used in the Xen
dom0 flavour of the kernel.

You are right that it is present and disabled in the Squeeze hypervisor
-- this is simply the default in the Xen 4.0.1 release and hasn't been
tweaked by Debian.

Ian.

Re: [PATCH] Re: tmem on 4.1 (was Re: Freeze schedule)

[Olivier B.]

Le 20/01/2011 09:23, Ian Campbell a écrit :
> On Thu, 2011-01-20 at 08:07 +0000, Olivier B. wrote:
>> Well, it is present but disabled in the new Debian Squeeze kernel...
> Do you really mean the kernel (i.e. Linux) or do you really mean the
> hypervisor?
>
> I was not aware of any tmem support (disabled or otherwise) in the
> Debian Squeeze Linux _kernel_. It hasn't been deliberately patched in
> and it does not appear to be in the xen.git snapshot used in the Xen
> dom0 flavour of the kernel.
>
> You are right that it is present and disabled in the Squeeze hypervisor
> -- this is simply the default in the Xen 4.0.1 release and hasn't been
> tweaked by Debian.
>
> Ian.
>

I don't know, on a Squeeze Dom0 with "tmem" parameters on default 
hypervisor and kernel, I have that :

root! yunze:~# xm tmem-list -a
G=Tt:39,Te:0,Cf:0,Af:0,Pf:0,Ta:0,Lm:0,Et:0,Ea:0,Rt:0,Ra:0,Rx:0,Fp:0
T=Gn:0,Gt:0,Gx:0,Gm:2147483647,Pn:0,Pt:0,Px:0,Pm:2147483647,gn:0,gt:0,gx:0,gm:2147483647,pn:0,pt:0,px:0,pm:2147483647,Fn:0,Ft:0,Fx:0,Fm:2147483647,On:0,Ot:0,Ox:0,Om:2147483647,Cn:0,Ct:0,Cx:0,Cm:2147483647,cn:0,ct:0,cx:0,cm:2147483647,dn:0,dt:0,dx:0,dm:2147483647


Is it "suffisant" to say that it works ?

but :
root! yunze:~# xm list 9
Name                                        ID   Mem VCPUs      State   
Time(s)
rome                                         9   512     2     
-b----     11.8
root! yunze:~# xm tmem-list 9
-1

and from the VM :
root! rome:~# cat /proc/cmdline
root=/dev/mapper/vg--rome-root ro rootflags=data=writeback rootdelay=1 
panic=60 swiotlb=force iommu=soft tmem
root! rome:~# uname -a
Linux rome 2.6.32-5-xen-amd64 #1 SMP Wed Jan 12 05:46:49 UTC 2011 x86_64 
GNU/Linux

But as I was saying, this is difficult to find any documentation, so I 
really don't know what is wrong or not...

Olivier

Re: [PATCH] Re: tmem on 4.1 (was Re: Freeze schedule)

[Jan Beulich]

>>> On 20.01.11 at 08:17, Keir Fraser <keir@xen.org> wrote:
> On 19/01/2011 21:38, "Dan Magenheimer" <dan.magenheimer@oracle.com> wrote:
> 
>> Just to check again, has anyone actually seen a problem with
>> tmem enabled by default recently?  I agree that there is still
>> theoretically a problem, but there is the same problem with
>> normal guests doing lots of ballooning as well.  Also, note
>> that even if tmem defaults to enabled, the problem is impossible
>> unless a guest enables tmem (or, in the case of SuSE, dom0).
>> And even if a guest does enable tmem, the problem manifested
>> largely due to shadow pages using order>0 (now fixed?)...
>> failure on domain creation can happen for many reasons and
>> is much less of an issue, true?
>> 
>> Feel free to shoot me down with more evidence, but I have
>> to at least provide token resistance to this patch.  Distros
>> might certainly choose to disable it to avoid any risk at
>> all, but turning it off anymore seems overkill for xen.org
>> open source Xen IMHO.
> 
> Tbh I was wondering whether anyone is really using it in earnest. No
> upstream kernels support it? If noone's using it, who really cares whether
> it's enabled or not, apart from its author.

As Dan wrote, all our kernels 2.6.31 and newer use it if the
hypervisor has it enabled, which was also the reason why
we noticed the problems it being enabled by default caused
during the 4.0 release cycle.

Since the 2.6.32 XCP kernel is derived from ours and
nothing in the patch queue there removes the tmem bits
afaict, it ought to be affected as much.

Jan

Re: [PATCH] Re: tmem on 4.1 (was Re: Freeze schedule)

[Ian Campbell]

On Thu, 2011-01-20 at 10:04 +0000, Jan Beulich wrote:
> 
> 
> Since the 2.6.32 XCP kernel is derived from ours and
> nothing in the patch queue there removes the tmem bits
> afaict, it ought to be affected as much.

Neither CONFIG_PRECACHE nor CONFIG_PRESWAP are enabled in the XCP kernel
configuration and hence CONFIG_TMEM is not selected.

Ian.

Re: [PATCH] Re: tmem on 4.1 (was Re: Freeze schedule)

[Ian Jackson]

Keir Fraser writes ("Re: [PATCH] Re: tmem on 4.1 (was [Xen-devel] Re: Freeze schedule)"):
> Tbh I was wondering whether anyone is really using it in earnest. No
> upstream kernels support it? If noone's using it, who really cares whether
> it's enabled or not, apart from its author.

If using it can break order>0 allocations, some of which we still
have, then perhaps we don't want it enabled because it's an
opportunity for DoS by a guest ?

Ian.

Re: [PATCH] Re: tmem on 4.1 (was Re: Freeze schedule)

[Tim Deegan]

At 21:38 +0000 on 19 Jan (1295473089), Dan Magenheimer wrote:
> Just to check again, has anyone actually seen a problem with
> tmem enabled by default recently?  I agree that there is still
> theoretically a problem, but there is the same problem with
> normal guests doing lots of ballooning as well.  Also, note
> that even if tmem defaults to enabled, the problem is impossible
> unless a guest enables tmem (or, in the case of SuSE, dom0).

I thought we already had this discussion and you agreed to disable tmem.
I only posted a patch because IanJ pointed out that we hadn't actually
done it.

> And even if a guest does enable tmem, the problem manifested
> largely due to shadow pages using order>0 (now fixed?)...

Yes, that's now fixed. 

Tim.

-- 
Tim Deegan <Tim.Deegan@citrix.com>
Principal Software Engineer, Xen Platform Team
Citrix Systems UK Ltd.  (Company #02937203, SL9 0BG)

RE: [PATCH] Re: tmem on 4.1 (was Re: Freeze schedule)

[Dan Magenheimer]

> At 21:38 +0000 on 19 Jan (1295473089), Dan Magenheimer wrote:
> > Just to check again, has anyone actually seen a problem with
> > tmem enabled by default recently?  I agree that there is still
> > theoretically a problem, but there is the same problem with
> > normal guests doing lots of ballooning as well.  Also, note
> > that even if tmem defaults to enabled, the problem is impossible
> > unless a guest enables tmem (or, in the case of SuSE, dom0).
> 
> I thought we already had this discussion and you agreed to disable
> tmem.
> I only posted a patch because IanJ pointed out that we hadn't actually
> done it.

Sorry, I guess I had second thoughts/reservations even just after my
previous reply, but didn't get around to replying to my own reply,
until I saw your reply.

(Yes, I'm still trying to parse that too ;-)

Thanks,
Dan