[Pkg-xen-devel] Bug#374876: xen-utils-3.0: mandatory items of README.Debian should be handled automatically

[Jens Nachtigall]

Package: xen-utils-3.0
Version: 3.0.2+hg9681-1
Severity: minor

Here comes another bug report :)

>From README.Debian:

|* About networking:
|
|   By default Xen modifies your networking configuration, creating a bridge.
|   To avoid breaking a machine's connection to the network the debian package
|   doesn't touch the network configuration unless requested. On the other hand
|   xen needs to connect the guest domains somewhere, in order for them to have
|   networking, and expects that the xen bridge exists. You should hand-tune
|   your networking configuration by editing /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp and
|   possibly /etc/network/interfaces to decide how to connect your domains to
|   the network.

I think this should be handled by a simple debconf question, where one option is to use
the default bridged network and the other to setup the network manually (as is done in
exim4 but with more options). Most people do only need the bridged network.

| * About loop devices:
| 
|    If you plan hosting virtual domains with file backed block devices (ie. the
|    ones xen-tools creates by default) be careful about two issues:
| 
|    1. Maximum number of loop devices
|       By default the loop driver supports a maximum of 8 loop devices. Of
|       course since every xen domain uses at least two (one for the data and one
|       for the swap) this number is absolutely insufficient. You should increase
|       it by adding a file named local-loop in /etc/modprobe.d containing the
|       string "options loop max_loop=128", if the loop driver is compiled as a
|       module, or by appending the string max_loop=128 to your kernel parameters
|       if the driver is in-kernel. Of course you can increase or decrease the
|       number 128 as you see fit.
| 
|    2. Driver loading (only if loop is compiled as a module)
|       Normally the loop driver gets loaded when the first loop device is
|       accessed. When using udev, though, the loop devices get created only
|       after the driver gets loaded. This means that xen will fail if the loop
|       driver is not already loaded when it tries to start a file-backed virtual
|       domain.  To fix this just add "loop" in your /etc/modules file, thus
|       forcing it to be loaded at boot time.

This should also be handled automatically. Simply do this stuff in a script. Everybody
using a xen debian kernel package will encouter this problem (i.e. many people)



-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.16-2-xen-686
Locale: LANG=de_DE at euro, LC_CTYPE=de_DE at euro (charmap=ISO-8859-15)

Versions of packages xen-utils-3.0 depends on:
ii  iproute                   20051007-4     Professional tools to control the 
ii  libc6                     2.3.6-13       GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libncurses5               5.5-2          Shared libraries for terminal hand
ii  python                    2.3.5-5        An interactive high-level object-o
ii  udev                      0.093-1        /dev/ and hotplug management daemo
ii  xen-hypervisor-3.0-i386 [ 3.0.2+hg9681-1 The Xen Hypervisor for i386
ii  zlib1g                    1:1.2.3-11     compression library - runtime

Versions of packages xen-utils-3.0 recommends:
ii  bridge-utils                  1.1-1      Utilities for configuring the Linu
ii  libc6-xen                     2.3.6-13   GNU C Library: Shared libraries [X

-- no debconf information