Bug 365453 – app-emulation/xen-tools-4.1.0 xendomains init script makes use of xl with non-existent arguments

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description Florian Schmaus 2011-04-30 19:59:39 UTC]

I found the time to update my gentoo xen installation from xen 3.4.0 and kernel xen-2.6.18 to xen 4.1.0-r1 and jeremy's ParavirtOps Kernel. Worked pretty nice, but the xendomains init script is now using "xl" instead of "xm" which causes some problems. Mostly because of the "--wait" arguments, which are not available with "xl". Also xl seems to run a check on the disk devices when creating a new domain, which fails when the disk device is a lvm2 vg (validate_virtual_disk failed to stat	
). xm is able to create the domain without errors.
I am aware that xl is supposed to replace xm sometime in the future, but atm the xendomains init script is not in a good shape.

Reproducible: Always

[Comment 1 Florian Schmaus 2011-05-02 18:16:46 UTC]

Then xend init script is also affected.

[Comment 2 Alvaro Parres 2011-05-25 15:59:41 UTC]

There are very simple patch for fix this.. I attach them...

[Comment 3 Alvaro Parres 2011-05-25 16:04:54 UTC]

Created attachment 274621 [details, diff]
init.d/xendomains and init.d/xend

Simple change on xend 4.1 and xendomains 4.1 init scripts,

[Comment 4 Florian Schmaus 2011-06-04 12:30:47 UTC]

Ahh, I wasn't aware that "--wait" is "-w" with xl. But this does not fix the disk device check when creating a new domain for xen domU's with lvm2 root devices.

[Comment 5 Max Hacking 2011-06-09 14:21:55 UTC]

The complete path is now required when specifying a phy device....

# virtual harddisk
disk = [ "phy:/dev/volumes/database-vm,xvda1,w",
         "phy:/dev/volumes/database-vx-databases,xvdb1,w" ];


This will solve the problem of being unable to locate the disk device....

libxl: error: libxl.c:900:validate_virtual_disk failed to stat volumes/database-vm: No such file or directory


Unfortunately you will then be hit by bug 370817 which produces errors such as....

libxl: error: libxl_device.c:476:libxl__wait_for_device_model Device Model not ready
xl: fatal error: libxl_create.c:535, rc=-1: libxl__confirm_device_model_startup


I would suggest reverting back to 4.0.1 but it seems to have been removed from portage.

[Comment 6 Ian Delaney (RETIRED) 2011-08-31 23:44:48 UTC]

yes that is problematic

[Comment 7 Max Hacking 2011-09-01 08:14:28 UTC]

(In reply to comment #6)
> yes that is problematic

I have a patched version of 4.0.2 available from my [hacking-gentoo] overlay if that is of any interest to anybody.

[Comment 8 Ian Delaney (RETIRED) 2011-09-01 13:02:53 UTC]

will keep it in mind; however some moves in progress to go for stabalising 4.1.0, which still doesn't discount the merit of returning that version.
The functionality of xl will likely be addressed for a fix in 4.1.1.

Xm from your description works well.

[Comment 9 Ian Delaney (RETIRED) 2011-09-08 08:00:24 UTC]

Alvero(In reply to comment #3)
> Created attachment 274621 [details, diff]
> init.d/xendomains and init.d/xend
> 
> Simple change on xend 4.1 and xendomains 4.1 init scripts,

Alvero;
incorporating those few lines.(In reply to comment #7)
> (In reply to comment #6)
> > yes that is problematic
> 
> I have a patched version of 4.0.2 available from my [hacking-gentoo] overlay if
> that is of any interest to anybody.

Maw what does the patch do?

[Comment 10 Max Hacking 2011-09-08 09:33:54 UTC]

(In reply to comment #9)
> Maw what does the patch do?

Allows xen-tools-4.0.x to build against the latest Kernel headers by changing all occurrences of READ and WRITE to BLKTAP_READ and BLKTAP_WRITE.  See bug #347664.

[Comment 11 Ian Delaney (RETIRED) 2011-09-08 10:20:37 UTC]

Florian, have you attempted using the full path as he described

[Comment 12 Ian Delaney (RETIRED) 2011-09-08 10:28:03 UTC]

Created attachment 285839 [details]
a one line patch (diff) for $PORTDIR/app-emulation/xen-tools/files/xend.initd-r2

[Comment 13 Ian Delaney (RETIRED) 2011-09-08 10:30:33 UTC]

Created attachment 285841 [details]
patch for $PORTDIR/app-emulation/xen-tools/files/xendomains.initd-r2

[Comment 14 Ian Delaney (RETIRED) 2011-09-08 15:08:02 UTC]

Sep  8 2011; Alexey Shvetsov <[e-mail]> -xen-tools-4.1.1-r1.ebuild,
change to init scripts, fix bug 365453
input by Ian Delaney aka idella4

[Comment 15 Sven 2011-09-18 22:45:31 UTC]

The xend init script still contains the line
  "xl shutdown -a -w"

If I execute this command manually, xl claims that "-a" is not supported. I know, that the xend USE flag is off by default now and hence the xend init script will probably disappear from most gentoo system. However, this should still be fixed, IMHO.