Re: [Xen-devel] Almost working iSCSI booting, need advice

[jpranevich@xxxxxxxxxxx]

----- "Stefan de Konink" <skinkie@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > So I can reproduce it, how do you have it configured then? I'm not
> familiar with a sans-bootloader configuration.
> 
> kernel = "/home/skinkie/xen/boot/gentoo";
> 

Bingo! I've found that in your case, _configureBootloader() exits out almost 
immediately, and instead the root disk and hotplug scripts are run later-- 
probably in _createDevices()-- but I don't completely understand that code yet. 

My issue appears to be here someplace. Since the bootloader gets called before 
the devices are created, we need to create the one-off VBD early and get the 
kernel/ramdisk from it. At that point, we can either destroy the VBD and let 
the subsequent call to _createDevices() recreate it (which is slow) or carry it 
forward. I'm not sure what the best mechanism would be. (Someone on this list 
probably understands this logic better and may have a strong opinion which is 
the correct way.))

I think there is also a second "bug" in Xen 3.3.0 on blkif.py, line 59. Are you 
using 3.3.0 yet? I'd be curious to see if you come to the same conclusion.

            try:
                (typ, params) = string.split(uname, ':', 1)
                if typ not in ('phy', 'file', 'tap'):
                    raise VmError(
                        'Block device must have "phy", "file" or "tap" '
                        'specified to type')

That code appears to explicitly block any of the hotplug-type devices from 
working. I can get around this by adding "iscsi" to the supported types, and it 
works properly. I'm sure there's a better fix. (Perhaps, we scan the scripts 
directory to look for block-* and add exceptions for all that match. Perhaps, 
there is a better way.)

Anyway, I'm going to work up a revised patch now that I have a better inkling 
what is going on. My goal will be to get hotplug devices work with the 
bootloaders. (But, at least I have something that appears to work without 
needing that support.)

Also, you mentioned pvgrub. Can you tell me how to use this? I did a "grep -R 
-i pvgrub xen-3.3.0" and can't find it in the Xen 3.3.0 release. The only 
reference I can find to it is in the release notes. Can you give me a pointer 
where this lives and how it works, so that I can see if it suffers from the 
same problem? 

Thanks,

Joe

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