[Pkg-xen-devel] Bug#655301: Bug#655301: xcp-xapi fails to start

[Mike McClurg]

On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 9:39 PM, Thomas Goirand <thomas at goirand.fr> wrote:
> On 01/31/2012 03:11 PM, Ian Campbell wrote:
>> On Sun, 2012-01-29 at 06:22 +0800, Thomas Goirand wrote:
>>> + Note that if you wish to use Xen with XCP (Xen Cloud Platform), then using
>>> + xl is mandatory.
>>
>> As I've said before I don't think this is correct. The correct value if
>> you are using XCP is "xapi" or "xe" or however you decide to word it.
>>
>> Ian.
>
> When you choose "xm", then "xl" doesn't work. When you choose "xl", then
> "xm" doesn't work.
>
> Now, whatever the value of TOOLSTACK, we have "xe" that always work. So
> there's no consistency, maybe we should make xe to fail if TOOLSTACK is
> set to something else than xe?
>
> I don't mind implementing a wrapper for xe though, which would do the
> same thing as the wrappers we have for both xl and xe, and then package
> the "real" xe binary in somewhere else. But then I see an issue. It
> might well be possible to use xe only to remote-control an XCP server,
> in which case Xen might not even be installed on the local computer. In
> such case, xe shouldn't be set to fail, because of a wrong value of
> TOOLSTACK.
>
> What's your take on this? What should I do then? Thoughts?
>


I prefer for xapi to only start when TOOLSTACK=xapi. xe isn't the
toolstack, it's just a CLI to xapi, and the TOOLSTACK switch should
have nothing to do with whether the user can run xe on that host. This
is analogous to how xend would work: setting toolstack to xl doesn't
prevent you from running xm, it just prevents xend from running, which
makes running xm fairly useless. xe is useful even if xapi isn't
running because it can talk to other hosts.

In my development branch of xapi, I have set the init script to only
start xapi if TOOLSTACK=xapi. I think that this is the way that it
should work. (But honestly, I don't care whether it's TOOLSTACK=xapi
or TOOSTACK=xe, as long as xapi won't start unless the correct value
is set.)

Mike