[Xen-users] Debian Lenny and tap:aio

[Garrett Robinson <Garrett.Robinson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

In setting up a Xen environment on a Debian 5.5 Lenny installation, I have been repeatedly challenged by problems with using disk images as storage for my domU's.

Specifically, I can never get the blktap driver to work. Anytime I try to use tap:aio instead of file, my VM boots, but halts like this:


[    0.360339] No iBFT detected.
[    0.360582] TCP cubic registered
[    0.360584] NET: Registered protocol family 17
[    0.360646] registered taskstats version 1
[    5.461152] XENBUS: Waiting for devices to initialise: 295s...290s...285s...280s...275s...270s...265s...260s...


This continues until 0, at which point the domain gives up trying to boot. Here are its death throes:

[  300.460125] XENBUS: Timeout connecting to device: device/vbd/2049 (local state 3, remote state 1)
[  300.460131] XENBUS: Device not ready: device/vbd/2049
[  300.460178] XENBUS: Timeout connecting to device: device/vbd/2050 (local state 3, remote state 1)
[  300.460183] XENBUS: Device not ready: device/vbd/2050
[  300.460187] XENBUS: Device with no driver: device/console/0
[  300.460193] drivers/rtc/hctosys.c: unable to open rtc device (rtc0)
[  300.460210] Freeing unused kernel memory: 216k freed
Loading, please wait...
Begin: Loading essential drivers ... done.
Begin: Running /scripts/init-premount ... FATAL: Error inserting fan (/lib/modules/2.6.26-2-xen-amd64/kernel/drivers/acpi/fan.ko): No such device
WARNING: Error inserting processor (/lib/modules/2.6.26-2-xen-amd64/kernel/drivers/acpi/processor.ko): No such device
[  300.560619] thermal: Unknown symbol acpi_processor_set_thermal_limit
FATAL: Error inserting thermal (/lib/modules/2.6.26-2-xen-amd64/kernel/drivers/acpi/thermal.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)
done.
Begin: Mounting root file system ... Begin: Running /scripts/local-top ... [  300.792971] device-mapper: uevent: version 1.0.3
[  300.793757] device-mapper: ioctl: 4.13.0-ioctl (2007-10-18) initialised: dm-devel@xxxxxxxxxx
  Volume group "greater.local" not found
done.
Begin: Waiting for root file system ... 


Here's the disk line from the config file:


disk        = [
                    'tap:aio:/home/xen/domains/server/swap.img,sda1,w',
                   'tap:aio:/home/xen/domains/server/disk.img,sda2,w',
                 ]


Changing tap:aio to file: in both lines allows the domain to boot and function normally.

There are numerous threads, on this mailing list and elsewhere, about this problem, but no solutions were proposed. I'm wondering if anybody else has experienced this problem and either found a solution, workaround, or replacement. Although using the loopback device is not the end of the world, it severely limits the scalability of the system I am developing.

Another observation: block-attach does not seem to be working properly. Possibly that could be related?

Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated.

-Garrett Robinson.
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