[Pkg-xen-devel] Xen status in lenny?

[Ian Campbell]

On Thu, 2008-07-10 at 21:53 +0200, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> AFAIK, the status of Xen in lenny is currently the following:
> - no dom0 kernel
> - domU kernel only for i386 (no domU kernel for amd64)
> 
> I was told (I don't remember where) that this is because the vanilla
> kernel only supports domU for i386, and has no dom0 support, so distros
> have to port the patches to their kernels (please correct me if I'm
> wrong).

That is correct.

The upstream -tip tree currently has some 64 bit domU patches queued
(probably for 2.6.27). They are rather new and far reaching since they
make some some nice infrastructure cleanups along the way etc. There's a
rather slim chance they might make it in for Lenny but given their young
age I'm not quite happy to say we could support a kernel with them for
the lifetime of Lenny.

dom0 support is being worked on by Fedora people (I think) but there are
no patches upstream yet.

> However:
> - etch shipped with dom0 and domU kernels on i386 and amd64
> - all major distros shipped with "full" Xen support

FWIW fc9 didn't ship with dom0 support -- that is targeted for fc10.
For now I think they recommend you stick with fc8 for dom0.

I think we will be in a similar situation -- recommending sticking with
Etch for dom0 (or at least the Etch kernel, which I run on sid for my
Xen uses just fine) is probably the best we can do at the moment.

> What are the plans for Xen for lenny? Is this situation likely to change
> before the release?

Without a massive injection of manpower (Debian side or upstream) I
don't see much changing. I've heard that maybe a Lenny + 1/2 kernel
might be able to add the features (64bit + dom0) which are missed this
time around if they are available upstream, but that isn't my call to
make.

Ian.
-- 
Ian Campbell

People usually get what's coming to them ... unless it's been mailed.