Re: [Xen-users] Xen 3.2.0 -> Newer kernel and more..

[Tait Clarridge <tait.clarridge@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Kalle,

I am running Xen 3.2.0 with a custom 2.6.21 kernel. There are a few
issues and it took me a lot of kernel reconfigs and builds to get it
working.

The reason I moved to the new kernel was that no patches were working
for me to get support for the Intel 965GM family of display adapters.
That being said, I came across a Mercurial repository that has Xen
patched kernels with Dom0 support.

http://hg.et.redhat.com/kernel-dev/

In that directory you will see that there are tons of kernels and
options. The one that I am using is the ehabkost/linux.2.6.21-xen-3.1.0
kernel. 

The thing you have to ensure is that you look through every section
during the configuration to find the Xen related options.

The first option that is a must is under Processor Type and Features,
make sure you check Enable Xen Compatible Kernel. This will open up a
section called XEN in the kernel config menu. Go into the XEN config
area and select Privileged Guest (Domain 0) Support. After that just
tweak the kernel until it works with your system. Make sure that AHCI
and all the main USB drivers are compiled as modules and it should work.

NOTE: you will need to go through the regular Xen 3.2 install from
source and build the 2.6.18.8 kernel that comes with that. Once that is
done, download 2.6.21 xen patched kernel compile then change the line in
GRUB.

Let me know if this works for you.

-Tait 

On Thu, 2008-01-24 at 13:45 +0200, Kalle wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> You are right about my over-angry attitude :)
> 
> I know that XEN dosen't suppoert newer kernel's then 2.6.18, but i really 
> don't care if that works. Actually im pretty happy for this kernel, it's 
> stable and it's working great on my production environment.
> 
> I have setup two physical server's what each has two DomU's. (2xfront and 
> 2xnode.) That setup is 95% faulty tolerant and load-balanced.
> 
> This project would be ready to production, but i can't get OCFS2 work with 
> DRBD. There's a bug in OCFS2 hertbeat. There's patch available but it's 
> only on 2.6.17 and 2.6.20. So I was thinking that it would be easier to 
> change kernel then modify those patches.
> 
> If anyone has any experience working with DRBD + OCFS2 and Xenified kernel 
> please report :) If and when i get this project done I will make good 
> "Load-balanced and faulty tolerant LAMP environment using Xen and 
> Ultramonkey"
> 
> But this problem is looking to be too hard for me to solve.
> 
> So once again. If someone knows howto apply that 'OCFS2 add_bio patch' to 
> Xenified 2.6.18 kernel i would be more then happy little admin.
> Or howto to patch 2.6.20 with Dom0 support.
> 
> Regard,
> Kalle
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, 24 Jan 2008, Emre Erenoglu wrote:
> 
> > Hi Kalle,
> >
> > I think you're a bit over-angry. So I suggest taking a walk outside in some
> > park to calm down and then come here again for questions.
> >
> > About documentation, I agree with you. It's unfortunately a bit trial and
> > error.
> >
> > About kernel, newer kernels than 2.6.18 are not supported by XEN. These are
> > distribution specific. There's no official patch for kernels above 2.6.18.
> > So I suggest using 2.6.18 until Xen supports a higher version kernel.
> >
> > I agree with you in the sense that this kernel is pretty old now. But it
> > works good for server deployments and it's pretty stable, which is more
> > wanted for virtualization goals than having some more hardware support and
> > some other new features.
> >
> > Hope that Xen developers move to a newer kernel in the near future, or
> > possibly integrate it upstream to all kernels somehow.
> >
> > DomU is currently supported above 2.6.23, but you won't get fb or some other
> > xen specific devices. Just vbd (disks) and network.
> >
> > For mercurial, I had no issues in my Ubuntu 7.10 system to download and
> > build xen 3.2.0 along with the kernel. just make a "hg clone" to the
> > mercurial repository address. Then when you say "make world" on your system
> > (if your system has all packages necessary for compiling kernels and stuff),
> > it will download the kernel 2.6.18 automatically, patch it automatically and
> > start compiling. It may ask for one or more questions during the kernel
> > configuration though.
> >
> > I had no issues whatsoever about this procedure, always went smoothly even
> > in test builds.
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Emre
> >
> >
> > On Jan 24, 2008 12:11 PM, Kalle <kalle@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> Firts of all i have to say that Xen is nice project and i propably can't
> >> live without it.
> >> But that's about all positive I have on my mind.
> >>
> >> Where are all recent documents?
> >> Why does those document have to hide so badly that normal human can't find
> >> those.
> >> Or is it like that there are no document's and i have to try -> fail ->
> >> try etc...
> >> This is really starting to piss me off right now..
> >>
> >> I want to compile newer kernel then 2.6.18 with dom0 support.
> >> Im using Xen 3.2.0 what ships with absolutily outdated / crap
> >> documentation.
> >> I can't find any information with google that is relevant.
> >> All outdated and crap.
> >>
> >> The install of this version also lacks.
> >> It has no idea howto download the kernel from mercurial.
> >> I have tested that on Debian Etch And Debian Lenny.
> >> I needed to manually download that kernel.
> >>
> >>
> >> So to questions..
> >>
> >> - Is there somewhere Xen patches for newer then 2.6.18 kernel? If where?
> >> - What is the "support" in main kernel line for Xen? Only DomU?
> >> - And again -> Where is those god damn patches for vanilla kernel?
> >>
> >> No, im not interested to backporting some shitty Fedora kernel's.
> >> No, im not familiar to customize old patches to work newer kernel's.
> >>
> >> Actually im not even so mad to Xen, just little.
> >> Im actually really fucking pissed that this project is not supported good
> >> enough in Debian.
> >> I don't want to change distro to something like Fedora or Ubuntu just to
> >> get newer kernel.
> >> There has to be way to port those patches to vanilla kernel, right?
> >> I just want to find thise patches.
> >>
> >> And could someone please delete the whole wiki, because that information
> >> is so outdated that no one does anything with that.
> >>
> >> Sorry my bad English and sorry about the way I present my thougs..
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Kalle
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Xen-users mailing list
> >> Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > -- 
> > Emre Erenoglu
> > erenoglu@xxxxxxxxx
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-users mailing list
> Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users

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