From bugmaster at FreeBSD.org Mon Aug 3 11:07:13 2009 From: bugmaster at FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD bugmaster) Date: Mon Aug 3 11:10:36 2009 Subject: Current problem reports assigned to freebsd-xen@FreeBSD.org Message-ID: <200908031107.n73B7Abr088853@freefall.freebsd.org> Note: to view an individual PR, use: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=(number). The following is a listing of current problems submitted by FreeBSD users. These represent problem reports covering all versions including experimental development code and obsolete releases. S Tracker Resp. Description -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- o kern/136251 xen [xen] [patch] xn0 doesn't DHCP o kern/135421 xen [xen] FreeBSD Xen PVM DomU network failure - netfronc. o kern/135179 xen [xen] Xen domU does not properly reboot o kern/135178 xen [xen] Xen domU outgoing data transfer stall when TSO i o kern/135069 xen [xen] FreeBSD-current/Xen SMP doesn't function at all o kern/135008 xen [xen] FreeBSD-current/Xen timecounter jumps o kern/134926 xen [xen] [panic] FreeBSD-current Xen DomU networking pani 7 problems total. From bugmaster at FreeBSD.org Mon Aug 10 11:07:09 2009 From: bugmaster at FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD bugmaster) Date: Mon Aug 10 11:10:01 2009 Subject: Current problem reports assigned to freebsd-xen@FreeBSD.org Message-ID: <200908101107.n7AB78DZ025372@freefall.freebsd.org> Note: to view an individual PR, use: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=(number). The following is a listing of current problems submitted by FreeBSD users. These represent problem reports covering all versions including experimental development code and obsolete releases. S Tracker Resp. Description -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- o kern/136251 xen [xen] [patch] xn0 doesn't DHCP o kern/135421 xen [xen] FreeBSD Xen PVM DomU network failure - netfronc. o kern/135179 xen [xen] Xen domU does not properly reboot o kern/135178 xen [xen] Xen domU outgoing data transfer stall when TSO i o kern/135069 xen [xen] FreeBSD-current/Xen SMP doesn't function at all o kern/135008 xen [xen] FreeBSD-current/Xen timecounter jumps o kern/134926 xen [xen] [panic] FreeBSD-current Xen DomU networking pani 7 problems total. From bugmaster at FreeBSD.org Mon Aug 17 11:07:07 2009 From: bugmaster at FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD bugmaster) Date: Mon Aug 17 11:10:17 2009 Subject: Current problem reports assigned to freebsd-xen@FreeBSD.org Message-ID: <200908171107.n7HB77jr076012@freefall.freebsd.org> Note: to view an individual PR, use: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=(number). The following is a listing of current problems submitted by FreeBSD users. These represent problem reports covering all versions including experimental development code and obsolete releases. S Tracker Resp. Description -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- o kern/136251 xen [xen] [patch] xn0 doesn't DHCP o kern/135421 xen [xen] FreeBSD Xen PVM DomU network failure - netfronc. o kern/135179 xen [xen] Xen domU does not properly reboot o kern/135178 xen [xen] Xen domU outgoing data transfer stall when TSO i o kern/135069 xen [xen] FreeBSD-current/Xen SMP doesn't function at all o kern/135008 xen [xen] FreeBSD-current/Xen timecounter jumps o kern/134926 xen [xen] [panic] FreeBSD-current Xen DomU networking pani 7 problems total. From florian.heigl at gmail.com Fri Aug 21 20:26:00 2009 From: florian.heigl at gmail.com (Florian Heigl) Date: Fri Aug 21 20:26:06 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? Message-ID: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> Hi, for over 3 years we're now looking at a mostly-working, breaking, half-working port, breaking, half-working of FreeBSD to xen. personally I think this is a very sad state, especially considering how well FreeBSD (-current, with patches) worked in Xen 2. I wonder if starting a fundraiser (like the ones initiated by rsync.net) might help this problem. I think we would have to scratch up enough for a month of kip's (or someone else's) time to see everything addressed and the xen patches finally being merged in a sane way like NetBSD did it. Assuming that most people do not very much care about their dom0 OS, but strongly care for running FreeBSD (instead of Linux, NetBSD, Solaris flavours) for their virtualized servers, it would be the best way to go to make almost everyone happy. Please note that I don't represent a company but would still scratch up money or donate some bunch of hardware to this end because I'm completely sick of having to tell people (in #freebsd.de, in some forums and, worst of all, even on trade fairs when helping at the FreeBSD booth) that "it used to be working but right now it's not stable for production use, but it might actually build right now" and point them at one of the above OS according to their needs, when actually they'd just love FreeBSD. Honestly, I do not believe this state will *ever* get better without some massive effort and I'm very much looking forward to some discussion about this. It think the support should get -stable'd while the linux kids are still trying to make ZFS work stable :) I'll scratch up $150 (or the same in hardware), so if a few more people and 1-2 companies chime in it might be enough to make: NO new features, just fix it and properly merge it into the amd64 and i386 archs. a nice weekend to you all, florian -- 'Sie brauchen sich um Ihre Zukunft keine Gedanken zu machen' From lsc at prgmr.com Fri Aug 21 22:16:33 2009 From: lsc at prgmr.com (Luke S Crawford) Date: Fri Aug 21 22:16:40 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Florian Heigl writes: > for over 3 years we're now looking at a mostly-working, breaking, > half-working port, breaking, half-working of FreeBSD to xen. > personally I think this is a very sad state, especially considering how well > FreeBSD (-current, with patches) worked in Xen 2. > > I wonder if starting a fundraiser (like the ones initiated by rsync.net) > might help this problem. > I think we would have to scratch up enough for a month of kip's (or someone > else's) time to see everything addressed and the xen patches finally being > merged in a sane way like NetBSD did it. I see lots of interest... if money and/or hardware helps, I can scratch up some myself, and I'd be happy to help flog the idea to others. I could commit to donating a core2 server with 8GiB ram and 2 disks, along with hosting if you need it with rebooter and serial (or I could ship the server to someone) plus a whole bunch of Linux dom0 servers you could test out DomUs on. I could also scrape up some cash. (unfortunately, my own budget isn't as flush as it was a few months ago, when I tried to set one of my friends on the project.) I'd also be happy to try to talk my competitors into helping the effort (us Xen hosting providers probably have more financial interest in paravirtualized FreeBSD support than anyone else, also donating to this sort of thing is good advertising.) So is anyone up for the coding task? Who? and how much money do we need to come up with to get this done? (If it helps fundrasing, I'd be more than happy to give anyone who donates money to the cause $1 in credit towards renting FreeBSD Xen DomUs on my system for every $1 they donate towards coding the project up.) I'm sure there are many others willing to kick in, and I know I'd certainly be willing to do some legwork to find some of that money, I think if we had someone like Kip put a number on it, we could reach that number. -- Luke S. Crawford http://prgmr.com/xen/ - Hosting for the technically adept http://nostarch.com/xen.htm - We don't assume you are stupid. From randy at psg.com Sat Aug 22 06:03:11 2009 From: randy at psg.com (Randy Bush) Date: Sat Aug 22 06:03:18 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: count me in for a few hundred. two things needed, someone to gather the cash and kip to show willingness. randy From adrian at freebsd.org Sat Aug 22 07:13:25 2009 From: adrian at freebsd.org (Adrian Chadd) Date: Sat Aug 22 07:13:31 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Kip isn't the only one that is interested / can do the work. I'm happy to do the work - but it'll take me significantly longer to grok the VM system and piece together the Xen "behaviour". I've talked to a few people in private about what it would take to get the port together. * Initial work to bring -head's Xen support back to scratch - primarily AFAIK a lot of SMP/PMAP attention * backporting that to 8-stable * the decision that Xen should be supported, and enough support showing up to make it happen; then * enough ongoing support and developer interest in keeping it up to date. Personally, I'd love to spend more time working on the Xen stuff but finding and doing paid work has to take priority at the moment. Adrian 2009/8/22 Randy Bush : > count me in for a few hundred. ?two things needed, someone to gather the > cash and kip to show willingness. > > randy > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > From randy at psg.com Sat Aug 22 07:32:06 2009 From: randy at psg.com (Randy Bush) Date: Sat Aug 22 07:32:12 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > Kip isn't the only one that is interested / can do the work. I'm happy > to do the work - but it'll take me significantly longer to grok the VM > system and piece together the Xen "behaviour". i want the results, quality results, and do not mind contributing to someone's education. and yes it will have to be maintained. the decay in ports in general is starting to smell a bit and has many of us casting sad and wary eyes at penguins. heck, to run a dom0, i had to learn to feed a penguin. randy From ivoras at freebsd.org Sat Aug 22 12:31:28 2009 From: ivoras at freebsd.org (Ivan Voras) Date: Sat Aug 22 12:31:34 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9bbcef730908220508q65e460e9mc73c5840d41a1723@mail.gmail.com> 2009/8/21 Florian Heigl : > I'll scratch up $150 (or the same in hardware), so if a few more people and > 1-2 companies chime in it might be enough to make: > NO new features, just fix it and properly merge it into the amd64 and i386 > archs. I'd like to see things get going for Xen as well and could probably gather some money from myself and other users and companies I know about locally (probably up to $500), but probably only if dom0 will be included, as I'm not particularly interested in domU. OTOH, domU is better than nothing... If the Xen-savvy developers get interested, I could also donate time and probably resources to create a coordinating web site. Everyone should keep in mind two things: 1) It's doubtful that there will be as many interested people that would donate to accumulate more than about $1000-2000, I think, which isn't much for the complexity of the work. There should really be some businesses interested simply because they can probably invest more money. 2) Individual monetary contributions cannot be by default handled by some proxy person (without much legal footwork); they will need to go directly from the source to the developer. Probably the best idea would be for the developers to set individual Paypal accounts. (for example: one person, or the Foundation, cannot gather money for such a project and then transfer it in bulk to developers). From randy at psg.com Sat Aug 22 12:39:29 2009 From: randy at psg.com (Randy Bush) Date: Sat Aug 22 12:39:35 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: <9bbcef730908220508q65e460e9mc73c5840d41a1723@mail.gmail.com> References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> <9bbcef730908220508q65e460e9mc73c5840d41a1723@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > 2) Individual monetary contributions cannot be by default handled by > some proxy person (without much legal footwork); they will need to go > directly from the source to the developer. a number of us have legal business fronts that could be used in pass-through mode. let's not worry about administrivia. randy From adrian at freebsd.org Sat Aug 22 13:17:58 2009 From: adrian at freebsd.org (Adrian Chadd) Date: Sat Aug 22 13:18:04 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> <9bbcef730908220508q65e460e9mc73c5840d41a1723@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Including me, as a developer. adrian 2009/8/22 Randy Bush : >> 2) Individual monetary contributions cannot be by default handled by >> some proxy person (without much legal footwork); they will need to go >> directly from the source to the developer. > > a number of us have legal business fronts that could be used in > pass-through mode. ?let's not worry about administrivia. > > randy > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > From bugmaster at FreeBSD.org Mon Aug 24 11:07:08 2009 From: bugmaster at FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD bugmaster) Date: Mon Aug 24 11:10:01 2009 Subject: Current problem reports assigned to freebsd-xen@FreeBSD.org Message-ID: <200908241107.n7OB77LU048799@freefall.freebsd.org> Note: to view an individual PR, use: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=(number). The following is a listing of current problems submitted by FreeBSD users. These represent problem reports covering all versions including experimental development code and obsolete releases. S Tracker Resp. Description -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- o kern/136251 xen [xen] [patch] xn0 doesn't DHCP o kern/135421 xen [xen] FreeBSD Xen PVM DomU network failure - netfronc. o kern/135179 xen [xen] Xen domU does not properly reboot o kern/135178 xen [xen] Xen domU outgoing data transfer stall when TSO i o kern/135069 xen [xen] FreeBSD-current/Xen SMP doesn't function at all o kern/135008 xen [xen] FreeBSD-current/Xen timecounter jumps o kern/134926 xen [xen] [panic] FreeBSD-current Xen DomU networking pani 7 problems total. From xen at komadev.de Mon Aug 24 13:42:00 2009 From: xen at komadev.de (Kai Mosebach) Date: Mon Aug 24 13:42:07 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <14889119.2221251120185215.JavaMail.root@zim.freshx.de> Hi, i guess a lot of us feel the same (mainly sadness) about the progress here and a lot of us have to feed penguins meanwhile... I personally think, that the virtualization technology in general is one of the key technologies of tomorrow and therefore it makes me even more sad, that FreeBSD fell back that much these days (years!). Therefore i ask myself whether this should be a major project in general and maybe the best way to push it (along with all the administrative and longterm problem) might be to get support from the FreeBSD Foundation, which successfully enabled Java for BSD some months ago (another key technology as i think). Otherwise it is very unprobably (in my eyes) that the little daemon ever will be playing in the ongoing cloud game and everything behind, which IS and WOULD BE a shame! Maybe some of the core ppl can raise awareness here? Best Kai ----- "Adrian Chadd" schrieb: > Including me, as a developer. > > > > adrian > > 2009/8/22 Randy Bush : > >> 2) Individual monetary contributions cannot be by default handled > by > >> some proxy person (without much legal footwork); they will need to > go > >> directly from the source to the developer. > > > > a number of us have legal business fronts that could be used in > > pass-through mode. ?let's not worry about administrivia. > > > > randy > > _______________________________________________ > > freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list > > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen > > To unsubscribe, send any mail to > "freebsd-xen-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" From adrian at freebsd.org Mon Aug 24 13:59:01 2009 From: adrian at freebsd.org (Adrian Chadd) Date: Mon Aug 24 13:59:08 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: <14889119.2221251120185215.JavaMail.root@zim.freshx.de> References: <14889119.2221251120185215.JavaMail.root@zim.freshx.de> Message-ID: The best thing users can do is -tell- the FreeBSD foundation that they're interested in this and in what way they're interested. If you're a company that is or would like to be deploying FreeBSD on Xen, you should also do this. Adrian 2009/8/24 Kai Mosebach : > Hi, > > i guess a lot of us feel the same (mainly sadness) about the progress here and a lot of us have to feed penguins meanwhile... > > I personally think, that the virtualization technology in general is one of the key technologies of tomorrow and therefore it makes me even more sad, that FreeBSD fell back that much these days (years!). > > Therefore i ask myself whether this should be a major project in general and maybe the best way to push it (along with all the administrative and longterm problem) might be to get support from the FreeBSD Foundation, which successfully enabled Java for BSD some months ago (another key technology as i think). Otherwise it is very unprobably (in my eyes) that the little daemon ever will be playing in the ongoing cloud game and everything behind, which IS and WOULD BE a shame! > > Maybe some of the core ppl can raise awareness here? > > Best Kai > > > ----- "Adrian Chadd" schrieb: > >> Including me, as a developer. >> >> >> >> adrian >> >> 2009/8/22 Randy Bush : >> >> 2) Individual monetary contributions cannot be by default handled >> by >> >> some proxy person (without much legal footwork); they will need to >> go >> >> directly from the source to the developer. >> > >> > a number of us have legal business fronts that could be used in >> > pass-through mode. ?let's not worry about administrivia. >> > >> > randy >> > _______________________________________________ >> > freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list >> > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen >> > To unsubscribe, send any mail to >> "freebsd-xen-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" >> > >> _______________________________________________ >> freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list >> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen >> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > From tajudd at gmail.com Mon Aug 24 18:04:26 2009 From: tajudd at gmail.com (Tim Judd) Date: Mon Aug 24 18:04:32 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: References: <14889119.2221251120185215.JavaMail.root@zim.freshx.de> Message-ID: I've kept quiet, but I wonder why we're feeding penguins for dom0, when netbsd has dom0 support since 4.0 Why are we feeding penguins, when support is already in the BSD's? Can't we use NetBSD's Xen knowhow to bring FreeBSD into it? Any insight would be a nice starter. --Tim From lsc at prgmr.com Mon Aug 24 22:06:30 2009 From: lsc at prgmr.com (Luke S Crawford) Date: Mon Aug 24 22:06:36 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: References: <14889119.2221251120185215.JavaMail.root@zim.freshx.de> Message-ID: Tim Judd writes: > > > > I've kept quiet, but I wonder why we're feeding penguins for dom0, > when netbsd has dom0 support since 4.0 I started out using NetBSD3 xen2 - it worked beautifully but didn't support x86_64 or i386PAE, so I switched to a Linux Dom0 so I could use servers with more than 4GiB ram. With NetBSD 5 being out, those problems are now solved. It's just inertia at this point; I'm considering NetBSD for my next dom0. But yeah, not supporting more than 4GiB ram was a big blocker. Inertia from that is probably why NetBSD Dom0s are not so popular right now. -- Luke S. Crawford http://prgmr.com/xen/ - Hosting for the technically adept http://nostarch.com/xen.htm - We don't assume you are stupid. From randy at psg.com Tue Aug 25 00:13:09 2009 From: randy at psg.com (Randy Bush) Date: Tue Aug 25 00:13:14 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: References: <14889119.2221251120185215.JavaMail.root@zim.freshx.de> Message-ID: > I've kept quiet, but I wonder why we're feeding penguins for dom0, > when netbsd has dom0 support since 4.0 i need the file system flexibility of zfs. nothing in netbsd. penguin has lvm, which gets a lot of what one needs. randy From kudzu at tenebras.com Tue Aug 25 01:29:14 2009 From: kudzu at tenebras.com (Michael Sierchio) Date: Tue Aug 25 01:29:20 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: References: <14889119.2221251120185215.JavaMail.root@zim.freshx.de> Message-ID: <4A933B27.1080501@tenebras.com> Randy Bush wrote: >> I've kept quiet, but I wonder why we're feeding penguins for dom0, >> when netbsd has dom0 support since 4.0 For my part, I am much more concerned with getting a working domU for i386 and amd64 than with *BSD as a dom0. From adrian at freebsd.org Tue Aug 25 22:27:04 2009 From: adrian at freebsd.org (Adrian Chadd) Date: Tue Aug 25 22:27:11 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: <4A933B27.1080501@tenebras.com> References: <14889119.2221251120185215.JavaMail.root@zim.freshx.de> <4A933B27.1080501@tenebras.com> Message-ID: Ok, there's enough interest at the moment for me to dedicate some cycles again. As I said earlier, my main concern isn't getting the port up to date, its making certain that there's enough support and investment from interested parties in making sure its kept alive. Let me organise some kind of portable Xen hacking device.. Adrian 2009/8/25 Michael Sierchio : > Randy Bush wrote: >>> I've kept quiet, but I wonder why we're feeding penguins for dom0, >>> when netbsd has dom0 support since 4.0 > > For my part, I am much more concerned with getting a working domU > for i386 and amd64 than with *BSD as a dom0. > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > From mdc at prgmr.com Wed Aug 26 06:19:07 2009 From: mdc at prgmr.com (Michael David Crawford) Date: Wed Aug 26 06:19:13 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A94CD0D.8070902@prgmr.com> Luke S Crawford wrote: > I could also scrape up some cash. > (unfortunately, my own budget isn't as flush as it was a few months ago, > when I tried to set one of my friends on the project.) That friend would be me (no relation). I'm afraid I didn't get very far at the time, in part because I had a lot of trouble coming to grips with Xen, and because I had never done any FreeBSD kernel programming before. I would be happy to continue with the work as a volunteer. I'd like to actually contribute some real code so as to finally earn all the money Luke paid me. I've been reading McKusick's book on The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System. It is very good; I expect I will be able to do some meaningful kernel hacking once I finish reading it. I gave up on Xen entirely for a while, as I had intended to use it for a project of my own but just couldn't get it to do what I need. But the Xen kernel and Linux Dom0 continue to be actively developed, so I'm intending to give it another try. I do have experience with kernel and driver programming on Mac OS X and with embedded systems. I am also a wizard at debugging - I was once on a team at Apple that specialized in fixing the most difficult bugs in the Classic Mac OS. I have also done a lot of storage and FireWire work. I have a Core 2 Quad Xeon box that runs Fedora 11, as well as a Core 2 Duo box that Luke lent me, that runs FreeBSD CURRENT. My intention for that box has been to learn FreeBSD kernel hacking by fixing some of the existing bugs on real hardware. That's just a step in the process of learning how to hack FreeBSD's DomU support. Ever Faithful, Mike -- Michael David Crawford mdc@prgmr.com prgmr.com - We Don't Assume You Are Stupid. Xen-Powered Virtual Private Servers: http://prgmr.com/xen From adrian at freebsd.org Wed Aug 26 23:00:55 2009 From: adrian at freebsd.org (Adrian Chadd) Date: Wed Aug 26 23:01:02 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: <4A94CD0D.8070902@prgmr.com> References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> <4A94CD0D.8070902@prgmr.com> Message-ID: Give me a few days to get stuff together here and I'll see what I can do in -head. Thanks for all your offers of support. adrian 2009/8/26 Michael David Crawford : > Luke S Crawford wrote: >> >> I could also scrape up some cash. ?(unfortunately, my own budget isn't as >> flush as it was a few months ago, >> when I tried to set one of my friends on the project.) > > That friend would be me (no relation). > > I'm afraid I didn't get very far at the time, in part because I had a lot of > trouble coming to grips with Xen, and because I had never done any FreeBSD > kernel programming before. > > I would be happy to continue with the work as a volunteer. ?I'd like to > actually contribute some real code so as to finally earn all the money Luke > paid me. > > I've been reading McKusick's book on The Design and Implementation of the > FreeBSD Operating System. ?It is very good; I expect I will be able to do > some meaningful kernel hacking once I finish reading it. > > I gave up on Xen entirely for a while, as I had intended to use it for a > project of my own but just couldn't get it to do what I need. ?But the Xen > kernel and Linux Dom0 continue to be actively developed, so I'm intending to > give it another try. > > I do have experience with kernel and driver programming on Mac OS X and with > embedded systems. ?I am also a wizard at debugging - I was once on a team at > Apple that specialized in fixing the most difficult bugs in the Classic Mac > OS. ?I have also done a lot of storage and FireWire work. > > I have a Core 2 Quad Xeon box that runs Fedora 11, as well as a Core 2 Duo > box that Luke lent me, that runs FreeBSD CURRENT. ?My intention for that box > has been to learn FreeBSD kernel hacking by fixing some of the existing bugs > on real hardware. ?That's just a step in the process of learning how to hack > FreeBSD's DomU support. > > Ever Faithful, > > Mike > -- > Michael David Crawford > mdc@prgmr.com > > ? prgmr.com - We Don't Assume You Are Stupid. > > ? ? ?Xen-Powered Virtual Private Servers: http://prgmr.com/xen > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > From adrian at freebsd.org Fri Aug 28 23:18:08 2009 From: adrian at freebsd.org (Adrian Chadd) Date: Fri Aug 28 23:18:15 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: G'day, To everyone involved, including those I've already spoken to privately. I think the best thing you all can do is talk to the FreeBSD Foundation about your views and uses for FreeBSD/Xen. I'm sure the foundation would be interested in donations towards FreeBSD in general and I hope that enough interest -and- donations with a voiced interest in Xen will gently prod them into kicking the support into shape and then invest into keeping it up to date. Adrian 2009/8/22 Florian Heigl : > Hi, > for over 3 years we're now looking at a mostly-working, breaking, > half-working port, breaking, half-working of FreeBSD to xen. > personally I think this is a very sad state, especially considering how well > FreeBSD (-current, with patches) worked in Xen 2. > > I wonder if starting a fundraiser (like the ones initiated by rsync.net) > might help this problem. > I think we would have to scratch up enough for a month of kip's (or someone > else's) time to see everything addressed and the xen patches finally being > merged in a sane way like NetBSD did it. > > Assuming that most people do not very much care about their dom0 OS, but > strongly care for running FreeBSD (instead of Linux, NetBSD, Solaris > flavours) for their virtualized servers, it would be the best way to go to > make almost everyone happy. > > Please note that I don't represent a company but would still scratch up > money or donate some bunch of hardware to this end because I'm completely > sick of having to tell people (in #freebsd.de, in some forums and, worst of > all, even on trade fairs when helping at the FreeBSD booth) that "it used to > be working but right now it's not stable for production use, but it might > actually build right now" and point them at one of the above OS according to > their needs, when actually they'd just love FreeBSD. > > Honestly, I do not believe this state will *ever* get better without some > massive effort and I'm very much looking forward to some discussion about > this. It think the support should get -stable'd while the linux kids are > still trying to make ZFS work stable :) > > I'll scratch up $150 (or the same in hardware), so if a few more people and > 1-2 companies chime in it might be enough to make: > NO new features, just fix it and properly merge it into the amd64 and i386 > archs. > > a nice weekend to you all, > florian > > > > -- > 'Sie brauchen sich um Ihre Zukunft keine Gedanken zu machen' > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > From mdc at prgmr.com Sat Aug 29 07:59:50 2009 From: mdc at prgmr.com (Michael David Crawford) Date: Sat Aug 29 07:59:57 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A98DFF6.4060404@prgmr.com> For working on the FreeBSD DomU, what should we use for the Xen kernel and the Dom0? Most people use Linux for Dom0 I think, but I understand you can also use Solaris. I was running the bleeding edge sources for a while, and I was able to get them to work, but not well. I eventually abandoned the effort out of frustration. However we might need some changes to the Xen or to the Dom0 sources, so maybe it would be best to work with the bleeding edge. A problem I had is that I was trying to use Xen to support the development of my own cross-platform product. This machine has a RAID that contains *all* of my files, going back almost twenty years. So I was a little hesitant to boot just any kernel on it. But now I have another box, purely for experimental use, that doesn't have any manner of precious data on it. I can freely run anything on it, without fear of losing anything valuable. Mike -- Michael David Crawford mdc@prgmr.com prgmr.com - We Don't Assume You Are Stupid. Xen-Powered Virtual Private Servers: http://prgmr.com/xen From adrian at freebsd.org Sat Aug 29 09:41:21 2009 From: adrian at freebsd.org (Adrian Chadd) Date: Sat Aug 29 09:41:28 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: <4A98DFF6.4060404@prgmr.com> References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> <4A98DFF6.4060404@prgmr.com> Message-ID: I'd suggest "use whatever works". I use Centos 5.x since they use the latest "stable" xen patched kernel but its quite out of date. Adrian 2009/8/29 Michael David Crawford : > For working on the FreeBSD DomU, what should we use for the Xen kernel and > the Dom0? > > Most people use Linux for Dom0 I think, but I understand you can also use > Solaris. > > I was running the bleeding edge sources for a while, and I was able to get > them to work, but not well. ?I eventually abandoned the effort out of > frustration. > > However we might need some changes to the Xen or to the Dom0 sources, so > maybe it would be best to work with the bleeding edge. > > A problem I had is that I was trying to use Xen to support the development > of my own cross-platform product. ?This machine has a RAID that contains > *all* of my files, going back almost twenty years. ?So I was a little > hesitant to boot just any kernel on it. > > But now I have another box, purely for experimental use, that doesn't have > any manner of precious data on it. ?I can freely run anything on it, without > fear of losing anything valuable. > > Mike > -- > Michael David Crawford > mdc@prgmr.com > > ? prgmr.com - We Don't Assume You Are Stupid. > > ? ? ?Xen-Powered Virtual Private Servers: http://prgmr.com/xen > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > From mdc at prgmr.com Sat Aug 29 11:10:19 2009 From: mdc at prgmr.com (Michael David Crawford) Date: Sat Aug 29 11:10:26 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: <4A98DFF6.4060404@prgmr.com> References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> <4A98DFF6.4060404@prgmr.com> Message-ID: <4A990C96.6090706@prgmr.com> The Xen kernel sources seem to be kept in both Mercurial and Git repositories. I've never been real clear as to which one I should use. If I want to use the development sources, but not the raw, seething, bleeding edge, which repository do I use? Can you supply an example checkout command line? The Linux Dom0 development just uses Git, I think, because that's what the mainline kernel developers use. Thanks, Mike -- Michael David Crawford mdc@prgmr.com prgmr.com - We Don't Assume You Are Stupid. Xen-Powered Virtual Private Servers: http://prgmr.com/xen From adrian at freebsd.org Sat Aug 29 11:17:53 2009 From: adrian at freebsd.org (Adrian Chadd) Date: Sat Aug 29 11:18:00 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: <4A990C96.6090706@prgmr.com> References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> <4A98DFF6.4060404@prgmr.com> <4A990C96.6090706@prgmr.com> Message-ID: Just don't dick around with that stuff unless you're an actual developer! :) stick to a distribution you get support from. I'd suggest CentOS. Centos/redhat are at least caring about Xen PVM/HVM support. Ubuntu for example seems to really only care about KVM these days. No idea about the rest. Adrian 2009/8/29 Michael David Crawford : > The Xen kernel sources seem to be kept in both Mercurial and Git > repositories. ?I've never been real clear as to which one I should use. > > If I want to use the development sources, but not the raw, seething, > bleeding edge, which repository do I use? ?Can you supply an example > checkout command line? > > The Linux Dom0 development just uses Git, I think, because that's what the > mainline kernel developers use. > > Thanks, > > Mike > -- > Michael David Crawford > mdc@prgmr.com > > ? prgmr.com - We Don't Assume You Are Stupid. > > ? ? ?Xen-Powered Virtual Private Servers: http://prgmr.com/xen > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > From lsc at prgmr.com Sat Aug 29 11:26:28 2009 From: lsc at prgmr.com (Luke S Crawford) Date: Sat Aug 29 11:26:34 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> <4A98DFF6.4060404@prgmr.com> Message-ID: Adrian Chadd writes: > I'd suggest "use whatever works". I use Centos 5.x since they use the > latest "stable" xen patched kernel but its quite out of date. If you want to make FreeBSD also run under the 3.0.3/3.1 hypervisor that CentOS/RHEL use, that's great (I think ec2 uses the RHEL/CentOS foo, but that is hersay.) the newer Xen hypervisors all seem to support DomUs that expect 3.0.3 hypervisors, so we should be good. The RHEL5 installations will be out there for a while, and 'yum install xen' is by far the easiest way to get a working Dom0. Prgmr.com uses a xen.org 2.6.18.8-xen (the one that comes with Xen 3.4) kernel and toolset on top of a CentOS 5 userland right now. I moved off of the CentOS kernel because until recently it did not support paravirt_ops DomUs, and the RHEL Xen kernels are slightly less stable than the xen.org kernels. RedHat has made it quite clear that they intend to replace all instances of xen with KVM. So yeah, for me personally, I see NetBSD 5 as the 'way forward' in terms of Dom0 operating systems, now that RedHat has publically stated that KVM should replace Xen in RedHat products (which is weird, because as far as I can see, while both are fine products, they are not even remotely substitutable. KVM would be a silly idea for prgmr.com to use for hosting, and Xen doesn't make sense if you just need to spin up a dev box every now and then.) Currently NetBSD uses the Xen 3.3 hypervisor, and it supports modern hardware. (really, the 2.6.18.8-xen kernel from xen.org, which I currently use in production is mostly okay, especially as the socket F boards havent changed in some time.) I started with FreeBSD Jails, and moved to NetBSD/xen2, and only left because of the ram limit. Now that NetBSD 5 is out, I think it's time for me to switch back. From mdc at prgmr.com Sat Aug 29 12:27:58 2009 From: mdc at prgmr.com (Michael David Crawford) Date: Sat Aug 29 12:28:04 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> <4A98DFF6.4060404@prgmr.com> <4A990C96.6090706@prgmr.com> Message-ID: <4A991ECD.6000306@prgmr.com> Adrian Chadd wrote: > Just don't dick around with that stuff unless you're an actual developer! :) > > stick to a distribution you get support from. I'd suggest CentOS. I'm concerned that the FreeBSD support might need patches made to the Xen kernel or to the various Dom0s. If that were the case, we really would be wanting to run the development code. When I was working with Xen a few months ago, the development code had all kinds of stuff in it that wasn't available in any of the releases. Mike -- Michael David Crawford mdc@prgmr.com prgmr.com - We Don't Assume You Are Stupid. Xen-Powered Virtual Private Servers: http://prgmr.com/xen From adrian at freebsd.org Sat Aug 29 12:41:19 2009 From: adrian at freebsd.org (Adrian Chadd) Date: Sat Aug 29 12:41:25 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: <4A991ECD.6000306@prgmr.com> References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> <4A98DFF6.4060404@prgmr.com> <4A990C96.6090706@prgmr.com> <4A991ECD.6000306@prgmr.com> Message-ID: The -head xen stuff I was testing worked fine with the out-of-box Xen hypervisor shipped with CentOS 5.3. That is what I'm using to do development against at the moment. Adrian 2009/8/29 Michael David Crawford : > Adrian Chadd wrote: >> >> Just don't dick around with that stuff unless you're an actual developer! >> :) >> >> stick to a distribution you get support from. I'd suggest CentOS. > > I'm concerned that the FreeBSD support might need patches made to the Xen > kernel or to the various Dom0s. > > If that were the case, we really would be wanting to run the development > code. > > When I was working with Xen a few months ago, the development code had all > kinds of stuff in it that wasn't available in any of the releases. > > Mike > -- > Michael David Crawford > mdc@prgmr.com > > ? prgmr.com - We Don't Assume You Are Stupid. > > ? ? ?Xen-Powered Virtual Private Servers: http://prgmr.com/xen > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-xen@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-xen > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-xen-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > From randy at psg.com Sun Aug 30 02:06:22 2009 From: randy at psg.com (Randy Bush) Date: Sun Aug 30 02:06:28 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> <4A98DFF6.4060404@prgmr.com> Message-ID: > I started with FreeBSD Jails, and moved to NetBSD/xen2, and only left > because of the ram limit. Now that NetBSD 5 is out, I think it's time > for me to switch back. what stops me from that path is that disk pool flexibility is a bit limited on netbsd. zfs or lvm let me slop disk space to domUs as they need it. randy From adrian at freebsd.org Sun Aug 30 02:24:40 2009 From: adrian at freebsd.org (Adrian Chadd) Date: Sun Aug 30 02:24:47 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> <4A98DFF6.4060404@prgmr.com> Message-ID: I'd -love- to dedicate some clock cycles to writing up a full-featured LVM geom module. Sigh. :) adrian 2009/8/30 Randy Bush : >> I started with FreeBSD Jails, and moved to NetBSD/xen2, and only left >> because of the ram limit. ? Now that NetBSD 5 is out, I think it's time >> for me to switch back. > > what stops me from that path is that disk pool flexibility is a bit > limited on netbsd. ?zfs or lvm let me slop disk space to domUs as they > need it. > > randy > From lsc at prgmr.com Sun Aug 30 04:13:01 2009 From: lsc at prgmr.com (Luke S Crawford) Date: Sun Aug 30 04:13:07 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> <4A98DFF6.4060404@prgmr.com> Message-ID: Randy Bush writes: > > I started with FreeBSD Jails, and moved to NetBSD/xen2, and only left > > because of the ram limit. Now that NetBSD 5 is out, I think it's time > > for me to switch back. > > what stops me from that path is that disk pool flexibility is a bit > limited on netbsd. zfs or lvm let me slop disk space to domUs as they > need it. what about the tap: driver and friends? qcow:? (these are issues I will need to figure out) LVM snapshots are so slow that I find them unsuable, so I'm not really losing much by moving to the tap: driver (granted, I am pushing my disks to the limit. lvm snapshots work fine if your disks are lightly loaded and/or faster than mine.) From sfourman at gmail.com Sun Aug 30 05:54:12 2009 From: sfourman at gmail.com (Sam Fourman Jr.) Date: Sun Aug 30 05:54:19 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> <4A98DFF6.4060404@prgmr.com> Message-ID: <11167f520908292254p9e5bcam3411ba3c0160df62@mail.gmail.com> > what about the tap: driver and friends? qcow:? (these are issues > I will need to figure out) LVM snapshots are so slow that I find them > unsuable, so I'm not really losing much by moving to the tap: driver > (granted, I am pushing my disks to the limit. lvm snapshots work fine if > your disks are lightly loaded and/or faster than mine.) If I can ask, how does Prgmr.com allocate disk space to domu's? qcow? also does anyone know if a NetBSD 5 or CURRENT dom0 can migrate domu's between 2 NetBSD Dom0's ? Migration and ZFS is what I am waiting for NetBSD to have. Sam Fourman Jr. From lsc at prgmr.com Sun Aug 30 10:28:44 2009 From: lsc at prgmr.com (Luke S Crawford) Date: Sun Aug 30 10:28:50 2009 Subject: finishing up the xen port - would funding help? In-Reply-To: <11167f520908292254p9e5bcam3411ba3c0160df62@mail.gmail.com> References: <77abe410908211256g44dd20d8o9b50c20357e63a6b@mail.gmail.com> <4A98DFF6.4060404@prgmr.com> <11167f520908292254p9e5bcam3411ba3c0160df62@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: "Sam Fourman Jr." writes: > > what about the tap: driver and friends? qcow:? (these are issues > > I will need to figure out) LVM snapshots are so slow that I find them > > unsuable, so I'm not really losing much by moving to the tap: driver > > (granted, I am pushing my disks to the limit. lvm snapshots work fine if > > your disks are lightly loaded and/or faster than mine.) > > If I can ask, how does Prgmr.com allocate disk space to domu's? qcow? > also does anyone know if a NetBSD 5 or CURRENT dom0 can migrate domu's > between 2 NetBSD Dom0's ? right now, production is Linux, and uses LVM. I believe live migration works with NetBSD5, but shared storage is required for live migration, and good reliable shared storage is out of my price range. > Migration and ZFS is what I am waiting for NetBSD to have. Zfs does look pretty nice; I've been looking at building a ghetto san out of some supermicro chassis and FreeBSD or OpenSolaris, and exporting iscsi LUNs backed by zfs, but I haven't done that yet, and even after I do that, it will be a long time before I trust it. (SANs can be nice, but they are also deadly. a fibre-channel san in an open rack was the cause of much of prgmr.com's instability from 2005 through 2007. Local disk is the cheapest, fastest, and most reliable option. Shared storage gets you flexibility, but can't match, dollar for dollar, the fast, cheap and reliable of mirrored local disk, which is why most of the larger hosting companies primarly run off local disk.) From bugmaster at FreeBSD.org Mon Aug 31 11:07:20 2009 From: bugmaster at FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD bugmaster) Date: Mon Aug 31 11:10:13 2009 Subject: Current problem reports assigned to freebsd-xen@FreeBSD.org Message-ID: <200908311107.n7VB7Jxr070779@freefall.freebsd.org> Note: to view an individual PR, use: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=(number). The following is a listing of current problems submitted by FreeBSD users. These represent problem reports covering all versions including experimental development code and obsolete releases. S Tracker Resp. Description -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- o kern/136251 xen [xen] [patch] xn0 doesn't DHCP o kern/135421 xen [xen] FreeBSD Xen PVM DomU network failure - netfronc. o kern/135179 xen [xen] Xen domU does not properly reboot o kern/135178 xen [xen] Xen domU outgoing data transfer stall when TSO i o kern/135069 xen [xen] FreeBSD-current/Xen SMP doesn't function at all o kern/135008 xen [xen] FreeBSD-current/Xen timecounter jumps o kern/134926 xen [xen] [panic] FreeBSD-current Xen DomU networking pani 7 problems total.