[kernel-xen] kernel-xen-3.8.10-1 & xen-4.2.2-3 released

[Gordan Bobic]

On 05/04/2013 10:30 AM, Steven Haigh wrote:

>>>>>> It would appear that as of this update, the shutdown sort-of
>>>>>> hangs. It
>>>>>> gets stuck while shutting down the VMs indefinitely printing dots,
>>>>>> even
>>>>>> though there are no VMs actually running to begin with (or perhaps
>>>>>> there
>>>>>> being no VMs to shut down might be the cause of it being stuck in the
>>>>>> loop. Possibly related to parallel shutdowns?
>>>>>
>>>>> Hmmm - it tested ok here... Are you running it in xl or xm mode? Check
>>>>> the output of:
>>>>>      # chkconfig --list xend
>>>>>
>>>>> If it says 3:on, you're using xend, if not, you're using xl.
>>>>
>>>> I'm using xend.
>>>>
>>>>> Does it still do the same if you have a DomU running?
>>>>
>>>> I haven't tried - the only DomU I have on the test box is the one where
>>>> I'm testing VGA passthrough and that is still not working at all (BSODs
>>>> on startup).
>>>
>>> Hmm - does it give you any funky output in 'xm list'?
>>
>> [root at normandy ~]# xm list
>> Name                            ID   Mem VCPUs      State   Time(s)
>> Domain-0                         0 48378    24     r-----    410.4
>> edi                                 8192     8                 0.0
>> [root at normandy ~]#
>
> Hmmm - did you create the config with 'xm new' for this or some other
> way? Normally, the entry for the DomU should disappear when it is shut
> down.

Created using virt-manager.

> It looks like the values for 'edi' exist in the xenstore - which is not
> really what we want. Ideally, the config should be in a plain text file
> in /etc/xen - then linked to (or move the file) to /etc/xen/auto if you
> want it to start on boot.

I'm sure I mentioned before that there is no text config file (not 
because I specifically wanted to use xenstore, just because that is what 
virt-manager seems to have done by default). Is there a way to dump out 
the contents of xenstore into a text config file, while still being able 
to manipulate the VM using virt-manager?

> The 'xm new' command is depreciated and doesn't exist with xl - which
> will be the replacement for xm in newer xen versions.

I'm not about to hold my breath for that. I have enough problems with 
"stable" software, bleeding edge is just, well, too bleeding for me. 
That's why I use EL6 instead of Fedora.

>> Ah, OK - I now tweaked this down to 30 from 300. I never actually waited
>> as long as 5 minutes for it to shut down since the machine normally
>> shuts down in only a few seconds (joys of NFS root backed by a machine
>> with tons of RAM).
>
> I still have my Dom0's set to 300 seconds. The systems usually shutdown
> within 30 seconds - but really this is a fail safe against having a
> stuck machine.

Well, we seem to have established that the problem is with xenstore VMs. So:

1) Is xenstore intended to be supported?

1.1) If yes, then a more advanced check than "xm list | wc -l" is required.

1.2) If xenstore is not intended to be supported, how to convert from 
xenstore to text config files.

1.2.1) If xenstore is not supported and text files are used, is it still 
possible to manipulate the VM using virt-manager? Is virt-manager 
intended to be supported?

While I find virt-manager useful for when I'm feeling lazy, I'd be happy 
to accept any recommendations for an alternative similar tool if one 
exists. I can live with just text files, it's just nice to sometimes, 
well, not have to do that.

Gordan