[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#607886: /sbin/init: init does not respawn '/sbin/getty 38400 hvc0' under domU when running Xen

[Dean Rantala]

Package: sysvinit
Version: 2.88dsf-13
Severity: important
File: /sbin/init


I have found that getty does not get respawned correctly for domU's on Xen.

If I start the domain:

xm create /path/to/vm.config

It starts correctly. I can then proceed to:

xm console <vm id>

As expected, everything works. Now I Ctr-] and I am out of the console.

However.. If I try to console in again, the console hange.... theres no getty listening on domU.

At this point, I can SSH into the domU and manually execute:

/sbin/getty 38400 hvc0 &

And presto! The console is now alive and waiting for a login.

It seems that init is not respawning getty correctly.

Upon further research, it looks like the original getty is still running - just no longer listening to /dev/hvc0 (singe executing a new instance is able to open hvc0).

I found that rather than running another instance of getty on hvc0, I could simply kill the "dead" instance of getty and everything respawns correctly..

Perhaps this is an issue with "xm console" not exiting correctly?

Maybe even an issue with getty itself?

dmesg, syslog, etc.. none show any errors or usefull info.

Either way, this potentially makes a serious issue if a virtual server is no longer network accessible and I must log in remotely.

I am running squeeze on 2 test platforms in preparation and will be happy to help out any way I can. If need be, I can even provide remote access to one of the test platforms.

- Dean


-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-xen-686 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages sysvinit depends on:
ii  initscripts                   2.88dsf-13 scripts for initializing and shutt
ii  libc6                         2.11.2-7   Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libselinux1                   2.0.96-1   SELinux runtime shared libraries
ii  libsepol1                     2.0.41-1   SELinux library for manipulating b
ii  sysv-rc                       2.88dsf-13 System-V-like runlevel change mech
ii  sysvinit-utils                2.88dsf-13 System-V-like utilities

sysvinit recommends no packages.

sysvinit suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information