A question about VM configuration

["Mario V. Guenzi" <jclark@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Good morning everyone,

First of all, I apologize for my English. We are planning the migration of our company system during the summer shutdown. We will be moving from Xen 4.14.6 to Xen 4.17.5.
The current version, which works perfectly, runs on Devuan 4 (Chimaera), and the new version will run on Devuan 5 (Daedalus).

We are currently testing the migration in a test environment, and we've already noticed the first differences in the VM configuration files. Specifically, the line:

device_model_override = '/usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64'

needs to be removed, as it causes an error during startup.

I must say that for Linux machines the issues are minimal — with a few tweaks, we can migrate from the old to the new setup using a simple dd.
However, I've been stuck for several days with Windows machines, and I'm now convinced that the problem lies in the configuration files.

Here’s what happens: essentially, with a configuration file like the one we've always used (provided below), the VM starts and after 30–40 seconds it reboots by itself.
Note that the xvda disk is completely empty. If I dd the disk from the old system to the new one, the VM starts with xl create corsaro2, but it gives an operating system error and reboots.

Here is the configuration file:

# start

name = "corsaro2"
#boot = "cd"
boot = "c"
#boot = "d"
type = 'hvm'
#builder = 'hvm'
firmware = 'ovmf'
#firmware = 'uefi'
#device_model_version = 'qemu-xen'
#device_model_override = '/usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64'
vif = [ 'mac=00:16:3e:7d:91:16, bridge=xenbr0, model=e1000' ]
#disk = [ 'phy:/dev/xen1/corsaro2,xvda,w', 'file:/home/xen/cdrom/WIN10ELTS.iso,xvdc:cdrom,r' ]
#disk = [ 'phy:/dev/xen1/corsaro2,xvda,w', 'file:/home/xen/cdrom/PV-8.2.2.iso,xvdc:cdrom,r' ]
disk = [ 'phy:/dev/xen1/corsaro2,xvda,w', 'file:/home/xen/cdrom/clonezilla.iso,xvdc:cdrom,r' ]
#disk = [ 'phy:/dev/xen1/corsaro2,xvda,w' ]
memory = 8192
vcpus = 4
_on_poweroff_ = 'destroy'
_on_reboot_   = 'restart'
_on_crash_    = 'restart'
vga       = 'stdvga'
videoram  = 16
sdl       = 0
vnc = 1
vnclisten = "0.0.0.0"
vncdisplay = 16 
vncpasswd = ''
vncunused  = 0
serial = 'pty'
tsc_mode = "native"
keymap = 'it'
#usbdevice = 'tablet'

The machine starts and reboots on its own after 30–40 seconds. I’d like to emphasize that the xvda disk is completely empty. If I clone the disk using dd from the old environment, the VM starts with xl create corsaro2 but then shows an operating system error and reboots.

In /var/xen/log I find the following:

cat /var/log/xen/qemu-dm-corsaro2.log
char device redirected to /dev/pts/7 (label serial0)
xen-qemu-system-i386: terminating on signal 1 from pid 19115 (/usr/lib/xen-4.17/bin/xl)

cat /var/log/xen/xl-corsaro2.log
Waiting for domain corsaro2 (domid 53) to die [pid 18530]
Domain 53 has shut down, reason code 1 0x1
Action for shutdown reason code 1 is restart
Domain 53 needs to be cleaned up: destroying the domain
Done. Rebooting now

I'm omitting /var/log/xen/xenstored-access.log for now, as it's very long and I don't want to risk being flagged as a spammer by the mail server.

But I really don’t understand why the machine reboots on its own.

Also, the installed packages are as follows:

root@marino:~# dpkg -l | grep qemu
ii  ipxe-qemu                            1.0.0+git-20190125.36a4c85-5.1          all          PXE boot firmware - ROM images for qemu
ii  qemu-block-extra                     1:7.2+dfsg-7+deb12u13                   amd64        extra block backend modules for qemu-system and qemu-utils
ii  qemu-efi-aarch64                     2022.11-6+deb12u2                       all          UEFI firmware for 64-bit ARM virtual machines
ii  qemu-efi-arm                         2022.11-6+deb12u2                       all          UEFI firmware for 32-bit ARM virtual machines
ii  qemu-system                          1:7.2+dfsg-7+deb12u13                   amd64        QEMU full system emulation binaries
ii  qemu-system-arm                      1:7.2+dfsg-7+deb12u13                   amd64        QEMU full system emulation binaries (arm)
ii  qemu-system-common                   1:7.2+dfsg-7+deb12u13                   amd64        QEMU full system emulation binaries (common files)
ii  qemu-system-data                     1:7.2+dfsg-7+deb12u13                   all          QEMU full system emulation (data files)
ii  qemu-system-gui                      1:7.2+dfsg-7+deb12u13                   amd64        QEMU full system emulation binaries (user interface and audio support)
ii  qemu-system-mips                     1:7.2+dfsg-7+deb12u13                   amd64        QEMU full system emulation binaries (mips)
ii  qemu-system-misc                     1:7.2+dfsg-7+deb12u13                   amd64        QEMU full system emulation binaries (miscellaneous)
ii  qemu-system-ppc                      1:7.2+dfsg-7+deb12u13                   amd64        QEMU full system emulation binaries (ppc)
ii  qemu-system-sparc                    1:7.2+dfsg-7+deb12u13                   amd64        QEMU full system emulation binaries (sparc)
ii  qemu-system-x86                      1:7.2+dfsg-7+deb12u13                   amd64        QEMU full system emulation binaries (x86)
ii  qemu-system-xen                      1:7.2+dfsg-7+deb12u13                   amd64        QEMU full system emulation (Xen helper package)
ii  qemu-utils                           1:7.2+dfsg-7+deb12u13                   amd64        QEMU utilities

 
root@marino:~# dpkg -l | grep xen
ii  grub-xen-bin                         2.06-13+deb12u1                         amd64        GRand Unified Bootloader, version 2 (Xen modules)
ii  grub-xen-host                        2.06-13+deb12u1                         amd64        GRand Unified Bootloader, version 2 (Xen host version)
ii  libxencall1:amd64                    4.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-1+deb12u1         amd64        Xen runtime library - libxencall
ii  libxendevicemodel1:amd64             4.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-1+deb12u1         amd64        Xen runtime libraries - libxendevicemodel
ii  libxenevtchn1:amd64                  4.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-1+deb12u1         amd64        Xen runtime libraries - libxenevtchn
ii  libxenforeignmemory1:amd64           4.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-1+deb12u1         amd64        Xen runtime libraries - libxenforeignmemory
ii  libxengnttab1:amd64                  4.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-1+deb12u1         amd64        Xen runtime libraries - libxengnttab
ii  libxenhypfs1:amd64                   4.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-1+deb12u1         amd64        Xen runtime library - libxenhypfs
ii  libxenmisc4.17:amd64                 4.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-1+deb12u1         amd64        Xen runtime libraries - miscellaneous, versioned ABI
ii  libxenstore4:amd64                   4.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-1+deb12u1         amd64        Xen runtime libraries - libxenstore
ii  libxentoolcore1:amd64                4.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-1+deb12u1         amd64        Xen runtime libraries - libxentoolcore
ii  libxentoollog1:amd64                 4.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-1+deb12u1         amd64        Xen runtime libraries - libxentoollog
ii  qemu-system-xen                      1:7.2+dfsg-7+deb12u13                   amd64        QEMU full system emulation (Xen helper package)
ii  xen-doc                              4.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-1+deb12u1         amd64        Xen documentation
ii  xen-hypervisor-4.17-amd64            4.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-1+deb12u1         amd64        Xen Hypervisor on AMD64
ii  xen-hypervisor-common                4.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-1+deb12u1         amd64        Xen Hypervisor - common files
ii  xen-utils-4.17                       4.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-1+deb12u1         amd64        Xen administrative tools
ii  xen-utils-common                     4.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-1+deb12u1         amd64        Xen administrative tools - common files
ii  xenstore-utils                       4.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-1+deb12u1         amd64        Xenstore command line utilities for Xen

Can anyone kindly tell me what I’m doing wrong?
Thanks in advance to anyone who replies, and my warmest regards to the list.

-- 
 
Mario Vittorio Guenzi
E-mail jclark@xxxxxxxxxx
Si vis pacem, para bellum