Bug#776450: Xen PVH support for grub-xen in Buster

[Hans van Kranenburg]

On 1/7/19 12:48 PM, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 07, 2019 at 08:44:50AM +0000, Colin Watson wrote:
>> On Mon, Jan 07, 2019 at 01:58:19AM +0100, Hans van Kranenburg wrote:
>>> Ok great. Since I'm not using (and probably not going to use) the
>>> multi-stage multiboot things, this is harder for me to help with.
>>
>> With any luck I should be able to work that bit out myself, since I
>> think stable's Xen has backported PVH support.

Well, I can help testing of course if you have instructions about what
to do.

> So it seems it doesn't quite have enough PVH support.  I get:
> 
>   xc: error: panic: xc_dom_core.c:702: xc_dom_find_loader: no loader found: Invalid kernel
>   libxl: error: libxl_dom.c:638:libxl__build_dom: xc_dom_parse_image failed: No such file or directory
>   libxl: error: libxl_create.c:1223:domcreate_rebuild_done: cannot (re-)build domain: -3
>   libxl: error: libxl.c:1575:libxl__destroy_domid: non-existant domain 8
>   libxl: error: libxl.c:1534:domain_destroy_callback: unable to destroy guest with domid 8
>   libxl: error: libxl.c:1463:domain_destroy_cb: destruction of domain 8 failed
> 
> (I get the same with your recipe based on upstream master, so I don't
> think it's a bug in my backport.)

Yeah, you'll need Xen 4.10 or newer.

And Linux 4.17 or newer for PVH and 4.20 for PVH+grub (or Debian 4.19
which has the patches).

Here's what I run on Stretch in production, if you want to run Xen 4.11:
https://salsa.debian.org/xen-team/debian-xen/tree/stretch-backports

Just build it with pbuilder or something, and the output will be this:
https://packages.mendix.com/debian/pool/main/x/xen/

> I can upgrade this host to buster at some point in the nearish future,
> but not quite right now.

Here's the 4.19 domU kernel that I use on Stretch:

https://packages.mendix.com/debian/pool/main/l/linux/linux-image-4.19.0-0.mxbp.1-cloud-amd64_4.19.9-1~mxbp9%2B1_amd64.deb

It's built from:
https://salsa.debian.org/knorrie-guest/linux/tree/debian/4.19.9-1_mxbp9+1

> Would you mind trying out the temporary pvh branch of
> https://salsa.debian.org/grub-team/grub ?  I'd like to know whether the
> resulting grub-xen-host binary package does the right thing, when built
> in the ordinary way (I've test-built this branch using sbuild).

Sure. I'll have a look at it today.

Hans