RE: [Xen-users] Release 0.9.7 of GPL PV Drivers for Windows

["Geoff Wiener" <gwiener@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi James;

Here are some preliminary test results.  I want to spend some more time
testing in more depth later this weekend however from my initial tests
everything is working really well.  When I get some time later I will
test hotplugging / unplugging in various scenarios, the tap:qcow issue
and some performance stats versus the original ones I ran.  I just
wanted to give you some early feedback that the format bug is resolved
and hot removing works!

Great work James - this is fantastic.


Install Drivers

Fresh Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 with latest updates
disk = [ 'file:/xenimages/xanc/xanc.img,hda,w' ]

*       Booted and installed the 0.9.7 drivers
*       Rebooted without the /gplpv switch, OK
*       Rebooted with the /gplpv switch, OK

Add Second Disk (Cold)

*       Shutdown DomU 
*       Create a fresh, non sparse IMG file
dd if=/dev/zero of=xanc-1.img  bs=1024k count=2048
*       Update disk line
disk = [ 'file:/xenimages/xanc/xanc.img,hda,w',
'file:/xenimages/xanc/xanc-1.img,hdb,w' ]
*       Boot the DomU
*       Device Manager shows two "disks" and two "controllers"
*       It takes a bit of time for windows to find the hardware and
prompt to install the device.  If you wait for it and then use Disk
management the new disk is available.  If you don't wait, like I didn't
the first time, it fails and you have to go into disk management again
after the driver is loaded.
*       Disk Management
*       Initialize Disk, Disk1, OK (Basic)
*       Right click disk one, unallocated, new partition, Next
*       Welcome to the new partition wizard, next
*       Primary Partition, Next
*       Partition size in MB: 2039
*       Assign the following drive letter: D
*       Format this partition with the following settings: <defaults>,
next, Finish
*       The format rapidly moves to 100% and completes successfully!
(Thank you!)
*       I was able to read and write to the new NTFS volume

Hot Remove the second disk & hot add attempt... (more later)

*       xm block-detach 60 hdb
*       Windows happily reported that it was safe to remove the hardware
and then kindly ejected the disk for me.  I was able to watch the whole
thing happen with disk manager open.  This is where I got confused about
what action I need to take as an operator / best practice.  I tried both
ejecting the Block Device and not ejecting the block device.  If I
didn't eject it I couldn't add the device back again but if I did eject
it I couldn't remove a device.  I know I am not explaining this clearly
because it is not clear to me yet exactly what steps I took in exactly
what order.  This needs more attention. 


Observations

*       In Device Manager, under the Disk Device properties it is now
possible to select "Optimize for Quick removal" or Optimize for
Performance policy.  Is there an "enable advanced performance" option
available?
*       In Disk Management it seems to take longer to connect to the
Logical Volume Management service - this is  not a complaint, just an
observation.

Best Regards

Geoff

-----Original Message-----
From: xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of James Harper
Sent: 07 June 2008 1:24 PM
To: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Xen-users] Release 0.9.7 of GPL PV Drivers for Windows

I've just uploaded 0.9.7 to http://www.meadowcourt.org/downloads

As a reminder, the wiki page is
http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenWindowsGplPv

This release fixes a bug which would cause a BSoD if you tried using 'xm
block-detach', and also a bug which would cause formatting of a xenvbd
device to fail. The latter bug could also possibly have caused
corruption, although unlikely, so an upgrade is recommended.

Also, using a physical CDROM should now work, but I haven't been able to
do much testing with it as I've been away from my test machine. (anyone
know if Linux can emulate a block device with a sector size other than
512 bytes?

Hopefully an upgrade will be as simple as 'download and run', but during
testing I broke my test machine so I haven't properly tested an upgrade
from 0.9.[56] to 0.9.7.
 
James


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