WARNING - OLD ARCHIVES

This is an archived copy of the Xen.org mailing list, which we have preserved to ensure that existing links to archives are not broken. The live archive, which contains the latest emails, can be found at http://lists.xen.org/
   
 
 
Xen 
 
Home Products Support Community News
 
   
 

xen-users

RE: [Xen-users] Issues running WinXP using hvmloader

Hi Mats,


On Thu, 2006-10-05 at 15:32 +0200, Petersson, Mats wrote:

> > Here are the issues I have found whilst working on a MingW development
> > environment under WinXP running as domU:
> > 
> > 
> >     1) If I try and start the WinXP dom with vcpus > 1 in my
> >     /etc/xen/winxp then the dom fails to start (this was an
> >     attempt to see if I could debug multi-threaded code under Xen)
> 
> This may be to do with old version of Xen - or perhaps you haven't got
> APIC and/or ACPI enabled in the config?
> See below about trying a later release of Xen. 

Ah this could be the problem - at the moment I can't boot Xen 3.0.2
without using the noapic option (I was also unable to boot the standard
Ubuntu kernel without adding noapic either). As suggested by the kernel,
I've added the apic=debug option to see the response. Unfortunately I
don't have a serial cable to hand, but I do have a digital camera:
http://www.ilande.co.uk/xen/apic_debug.jpg.

> > 
> >     2) If I run a compiled C program that causes a crash (such as
> >     referencing a NULL pointer) then Windows brings up its normal
> >     crash dialog box offering to send the information to MS. However
> >     when I try and continue after the crash, the WinXP dom reboots
> >     again. This occurs even when I have attached MingW's gdb to the
> >     process to try and catch the exception - is there a way to catch
> >     this so it doesn't reboot the dom?
> 
> Hmm. So something like:
>       void main(void)
>       {
>               int *p = NULL;
>               p = 47;
>       }
> Causes WinXP to reboot? It shouldn't, that's for sure. Any chance you
> can try this in 3.0.3-RC2?

This one is strange because while I have one program that segfaults
immediately, the example above doesn't cause the dom to crash (in fact
it doesn't even bring up the standard MS crash dialog). However, if I
attach MingW's gdb to the process and run the above example then it does
cause the dom to crash and reboot!?

Is there a binary download of 3.0.3-RC2 available for x86_64 since I
don't have a Xen build environment setup yet? 
 
> >     3) Normally I terminate WinXP running in my dom by using the
> >     Start -> Shutdown option and then closing the hvmloader window
> >     when the "It is safe to turn off your computer" notice appears.
> >     Unfortunately this still leaves a Zombie dom which shows up
> >     under "xm list". Trying "xm destroy" or "xm shutdown" doesn't
> >     remove the zombie dom. The state flags for these zombies are
> >     listed as "----cd".
> 
> ACPI disabled or enabled?

I think this is disabled, since I don't have any acpi options in
my /etc/xen/winxp file. I shall try again with this enabled and see if
it makes any difference.

> >     4) If I have started a WinXP dom during my session and
> >     shutdown my dom0 PC using "shutdown -h now" then Xen crashes. It
> >     appears that all applications have shut down, and the Xen
> >     console output appears back on the screen, but instead of
> >     completing the shutdown, Xen crashes and emits a
> >     stack trace on screen before immediately rebooting my PC.
> >     Unfortunately the reboot happens too quickly to write down
> >     the offending information, but if someone could talk me through
> >     how to capture it then I would be happy to help.
> 
> If you have the ability to connect a serial port to the Xen-machine, you
> can capture it in a terminal program on another machine by adding a
> serial output to the Xen-line in grub.conf:
>       com1=115200,8n1 console=com1 sync_console
> Alternatively, you can probably write it down by adding "noreboot" to
> the Xen-line in grub.conf.

Again, I have no serial cable but I managed to grab a snapshot of the
crash: http://www.ilande.co.uk/xen/shutdown_crash.jpg.

> I hope this is of some help. 

Absolutely yes! :)


Many thanks,

Mark.



_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users