Re: xl or xm for xen ? (and more questions, maybe raidframe related)

[Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>]

On Mon, Dec 02, 2013 at 05:52:47PM +0700, Robert Elz wrote:
> I'm confused...
> 
> Perhaps not a new state, but at an increased level...   I know that xm
> is old, and being replaced by xl, but I'm totally confuxed by the setup
> as installed by sysutils/xentools42 from pkgsrc (when I'm installing new
> stuff, I like to pick what seems to be the latest version, unless there's
> a good reason not to, as once picked, I tend to then stay with that version
> for a long time...)
> 
> I have installed the rc.d scripts from xentools42 - and they seem to
> work fine, but when I read various documentation, I have no idea what is
> going on, or whether it is really installed and working correctly (I am
> yet to actually try installing a domU - this confusion over xm & xl is
> largely why, I'm not sure what commands I should be using.)   The NetBSD
> Dom0 (using a kernel that was from HEAD a couple of months ago - 6.99.23)
> looks to be working fine (modulo one minor probably non-problem.)
> 
> The xendomains script that is installed in rc.d uses xl to start things.
> All the documentation I have read (general, mostly aimed at linux users,
> documentation) says that when xl is used, xend should not be, and all python
> related stuff should be removed (I'd like that!)
> 
> But, the xendomains script has "REQUIRE: xend" in it ??

I think this is a leftover from previous versions.

> 
> Can anyone tell me what I should really be doing, what is needed, and what
> is not needed?   NetBSD specific documentation seems to all still be xm based.

Yes, because before 4.2 xm is unusable. Even with Xen 4.2, there are
missing features in the xl toolstack.

> 
> I am a 100% new XEN user, I have no finger memory to maintain, or anything
> like that, no existing configurations to be compatible with, so I have no
> interest in starting with an old system that's in the process of being
> deprecated, I'd like to begin by using something that looks like it might
> still be around next year, and the year after - and at the minute that seems
> to be xl.
> 
> While I am here, my Dom0 kernel is saying ...
> 
>     evtchn_do_event: handler 0xffffffff801f9c7f didn't lower ipl 8 7
> 
> According to a nm of the (amd64) kernel, that address is xen_timer_handler()
> and from a quick glance through the code, I suspect that it is saying that
> some callout handler is busted...

Yes, is has been there for a long time, but we failed to find where is
problem is exactly.

-- 
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>
     NetBSD: 26 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference
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