--- Day changed --- Log opened Wed Mar 30 23:59:02 2005 00:35 * riel starts AIM7 on a "3 CPU" xenU guest 00:37 < caker> Is it the unstable branch that has support for MP guests? 00:38 < riel> yes 00:38 < caker> wow.. What's the status? Fairly stable at this point? 00:40 < riel> it often is 00:41 < riel> I think I ran into a little smp bug in page table handling 00:41 < riel> I'll send a patch to xen-devel tomorrow, for discussion 00:41 * riel zzzzzzz 00:41 < riel> really time to sleep now ;) 00:41 < riel> aim7 will run by itself just fine 01:23 < riel> ok, aim7 is chugging along nicely 01:23 < riel> this is pretty cool 02:24 -!- cw [cw@adsl-67-124-117-212.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net] has quit [Ping timeout: 480 seconds] 02:28 -!- cw [cw@adsl-63-202-174-57.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net] has joined #xen 03:09 -!- rusty [~rusty@bh02i525f01.au.ibm.com] has quit [Quit: Client exiting] 04:06 -!- LaidBack_01 [~jax@69.146.20.246] has joined #xen 04:13 -!- Beaky [~chatzilla@ncg-adsl.demon.co.uk] has joined #xen 05:08 -!- muli [~muli@alhambra.mulix.org] has quit [Ping timeout: 480 seconds] --- Log opened Thu Mar 31 14:16:35 2005 14:32 < riel> hummm, big interdiff 14:32 * riel reads 14:32 -!- totempole [~chatzilla@lawn-199-77-210-154.lawn.gatech.edu] has joined #xen 14:33 -!- totempole [~chatzilla@lawn-199-77-210-154.lawn.gatech.edu] has quit [Quit: ] 14:33 < riel> it might be later tonight before I upgrade the xen code in rawhide ;) 14:33 < riel> almost 5000 lines of patch to go through 14:34 < riel> luckily most of it seems to be the removal of the batched pagetable updates, so that's easy 14:35 -!- niv [~niv@bi01p1.co.us.ibm.com] has joined #xen 14:37 < rocket> I am interested in getting an understanding of xen and kernel internals and things like that is there anywhere you guys suggest I start looking for information to get up to speed? 14:38 -!- caker [~caker@ns.theshore.net] has joined #xen 14:38 < hollis> rocket: have a look at the papers on the Xen website 14:39 < rocket> hollis: sounds good .. and for the kernel internals, etc? is there a good book to read? online docs? 14:39 < riel> Understanding The Linux Kernel 14:39 < rocket> riel: I am assuming thats a book title 14:39 < riel> yeah, it is 14:40 < rocket> ok 14:40 < rocket> sorry I am such a newbie in this area .. its just something I have always been interested in .. and need to find a place to start :p 14:46 < riel> do you know what syscalls are ? 14:46 < riel> xenolinux makes "hypercalls" into xen - very similar to syscalls 14:47 < LaidBack_01> hey, everytime I try to get xen 2.0.5 to work, my kernel hangs. 14:47 < LaidBack_01> now 2.0.4 worked fine. 14:47 < LaidBack_01> anyone else run into issues similar? 14:47 < rocket> yeah .. I have a rudimentary understanding of syscalls .. 14:47 < LaidBack_01> I've read the mailing list on this, but only one other had the problem it seemed. 14:48 < rocket> riel: "understanding the linux kernel" is kind of old is that ok? 14:48 < riel> it explains the concepts behind the code 14:48 < riel> instead of just explaining the code 14:49 < rocket> ah ok .. thats better anyway :p 14:49 < riel> if you want a nice explanation of the code, and don't need an explanation of the concepts behind it, Robert Love's book is great 14:49 < riel> but if you're new to OS hacking, you may want a book with a bit more background info 14:49 < rocket> probably want the background info .. :p 14:50 < rocket> and do these books cover the assembly parts very much? 14:52 < riel> only a little bit, I think 14:54 < rocket> ok 14:54 * rocket is attempting to get grsecurity working with xen .. but knows at the moment I am out of my league :/ 14:58 -!- greenrd [~greenrd@66-188-75-198.cpe.ga.charter.com] has quit [Read error: Operation timed out] 15:01 < riel> rocket: why? 15:01 < rocket> why am I out of my league or why am I trying to get grsecurity working? 15:02 < riel> why are you trying to get grsecurity working ? 15:02 < riel> and, which parts ? ;) 15:02 < riel> if you get stuck on PaX, you can just take the execshield patches from fedora rawhide 15:03 < rocket> well mostly the acl's and process listing parts .. 15:03 < rocket> but I thought it would be cool to have grsecurity enabled xen kernels .. to build more secure firewall xen instances etc 15:05 < rocket> I was trying to look at the grsecurity patch and just grab the i386 arch specific stuff and apply it to the xen arch .. but there are some files missing/changed that I dont understand what I need to do .. so I know I need a better understanding of the kernel 15:05 < rocket> basically its a pet project to learn OS hacking better :) 15:06 < riel> you can do much better than that 15:06 < riel> run a bridging firewall, without any IP addresses at all 15:06 < riel> access it via the xen console 15:06 -!- greenrd [~greenrd@66-188-75-198.cpe.ga.charter.com] has joined #xen 15:07 < rocket> yeah I know I can do that .. but i was also thinking of more secure dns/web/mail server instances .. etc .. since I dont have a ton of hardware .. I like the virtualization concepts .. 15:07 < knewt> is acpi support in -unstable yet? it's that that's stopping me from putting it on my laptop 15:10 < riel> rocket: there's no security like read only filesystems, enforced by the hypervisor ;) 15:11 < riel> rocket: ideally even a kernel exploit should not compromise the virtual machine's most important things 15:11 < rocket> riel: true :) 15:13 < rocket> but when you get into needing rw filesystems etc or giving greater control .. there are some nice features in grsecurity .. and again it is a pet project .. 15:13 < riel> it'll be a good learning experience, true 15:13 < riel> so you should probably try porting it 15:14 < jeroney> rocket: this is RBAC just use SELinux and do MAC 15:14 < jeroney> rocket: you can get the same effect 15:15 < rocket> jeroney: I dont doubt that one bit .. in fact I totally agree .. but i want to learn how to do it .. if that makes sense? 15:16 < riel> rocket: you may want to talk with some of the people on #kernelnewbies 15:16 < riel> they're doing similar projects 15:16 < jeroney> hmm...well I would say start with the books, and a couple months from now you'll be be able to just jump into it...I would start by writing an LSM for the kernel 15:16 < rocket> ok 15:17 < rocket> jeroney: sounds good 15:23 < eigood> ladbac: well, considering you haven't told us anything 15:23 -!- Surferdude [~Surferdud@pcp08365167pcs.lndsd201.pa.comcast.net] has joined #xen 15:23 < eigood> LaidBack_01: well, considering you haven't told us anything 15:24 -!- Surferdude [~Surferdud@pcp08365167pcs.lndsd201.pa.comcast.net] has left #xen [] 15:24 < eigood> riel: I've got a new dbs-ng(patch management tool used by several debian packageS) that makes upgrading to new upstreams fairly easy 15:25 < eigood> it's destined to become dpkg-source v2, once I finish rewriting it from perl to c 15:25 < eigood> 15:25 < riel> eigood: oh, applying patches isn't the problem 15:25 < riel> eigood: I just read the patch to make sure the content doesn't conflict with eg. my execshield changes 15:26 < riel> or with the page table changes introduced in 2.6.12-rc1 15:28 < eigood> I maintain separate debian patches against upstream(in debian/patches), so removing ones applied upstream is simple(in theory) 15:28 < eigood> my patch system also supports 'dependencies', which is used for ordering 15:29 < eigood> of course, I hardly ever release stuff, ... 15:31 -!- anthill333 [~larsr@palwebproxy2.core.hp.com] has joined #xen 15:33 -!- jeroney [~jeroney@pixpat.austin.ibm.com] has quit [Quit: Leaving] 15:34 -!- greenrd [~greenrd@66-188-75-198.cpe.ga.charter.com] has quit [Ping timeout: 480 seconds] 15:38 -!- greenrd [~greenrd@66-188-75-198.cpe.ga.charter.com] has joined #xen 15:46 -!- GN [~tjf@pat.foulston.com] has joined #xen 15:47 -!- GN [~tjf@pat.foulston.com] has left #xen [Leaving] 15:52 -!- Sir_Ahzz [~ahzz@c-24-0-215-3.client.comcast.net] has quit [Ping timeout: 480 seconds] 15:52 -!- Sir_Ahzz 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DEac- [~deac@xdsl-81-173-139-25.netcologne.de] has joined #xen 16:19 < Mark> Sir_Ahzz: you still about? 16:19 < Sir_Ahzz> yeah 16:19 < Sir_Ahzz> just came back inside. 16:19 < Sir_Ahzz> finished repairing the chainsaw. 16:19 < Mark> That's not something you can say every day! 16:20 < Mark> (well maybe *you* can - but I can't :-) 16:21 < Sir_Ahzz> heh 16:21 < Sir_Ahzz> the stump get's it later. 16:21 < Mark> sooo, nickserv... what exactly do I have to do? this IRC business is somewhat new fangled and unfamiliar ;-) 16:21 < Sir_Ahzz> previous homeowners left a 5' tall stump right next to the front door. complete with moldy and peeling bark. 8-P 16:21 < Sir_Ahzz> do /msg nickserv help 16:21 < Sir_Ahzz> it'll reply with instructions. :) 16:22 < Mark> oooh! 16:23 -!- greenrd [~greenrd@66-188-75-198.cpe.ga.charter.com] has quit [Ping timeout: 480 seconds] 16:24 -!- Mark [~MarkWilli@hebble.cl.cam.ac.uk] has left #xen [Kopete 0.9.2 : http://kopete.kde.org] 16:24 < riel> Patch #701 (linux-2.6.9-xen-compile.patch): 16:24 < riel> + patch -p1 -s 16:24 < riel> 2 out of 5 hunks FAILED -- saving rejects to file include/asm-xen/asm-i386/pgtable.h.rej 16:24 < riel> 1 out of 1 hunk FAILED -- saving rejects to file include/asm-xen/asm-i386/pgtable-2level.h.rej 16:24 < riel> 1 out of 1 hunk FAILED -- saving rejects to file arch/xen/i386/kernel/Makefile.rej 16:24 < riel> ok, close enough ;) 16:25 < Sir_Ahzz> fun. :) 16:25 -!- Mark [~MarkWilli@hebble.cl.cam.ac.uk] has joined #xen 16:25 -!- Mark [~MarkWilli@hebble.cl.cam.ac.uk] has left #xen [Kopete 0.9.2 : http://kopete.kde.org] 16:25 -!- mode/#xen [+o surriel] by riel 16:25 -!- MarkW [~MarkWilli@hebble.cl.cam.ac.uk] has joined #xen 16:25 < Sir_Ahzz> mark, problems? 16:26 < MarkW> sorted now 16:27 < Sir_Ahzz> ah 16:27 < MarkW> Should be registered with nickserv as MarkW 16:27 < Sir_Ahzz> so is it mark or markw that you registered? 16:27 < Sir_Ahzz> ok 16:27 < MarkW> there was another Mark :-( 16:27 < MarkW> now why would someone be named after me...? 16:27 < Sir_Ahzz> you'r added. 16:27 < Sir_Ahzz> should get auto-oped upon joining if you have been verified by nickserv 16:28 -!- mode/#xen [+o MarkW] by Sir_Ahzz 16:28 * MarkW feels his new superpowers appear 16:28 < riel> easily testabe with /cycle or /kick ;) 16:29 < MarkW> :-) 16:29 -!- riel was kicked from #xen by riel [test] 16:29 -!- riel [~riel@riel.netop.oftc.net] has joined #xen 16:29 < riel> mmmm nope 16:29 < Sir_Ahzz> you verified with nickserv? 16:29 < riel> yes 16:30 < Sir_Ahzz> hunh. 16:31 < Sir_Ahzz> there. 16:31 < Sir_Ahzz> fixed in the list. 16:31 < Sir_Ahzz> it lost your entry for some reason. 16:31 < Sir_Ahzz> *shrug* 16:31 -!- riel [~riel@riel.netop.oftc.net] has left #xen [] 16:31 -!- riel [~riel@riel.netop.oftc.net] has joined #xen 16:31 -!- mode/#xen [+o riel] by ChanServ 16:31 < riel> ty 16:31 < Sir_Ahzz> ahh well, back to cutting this stump outa the ground. 8-P 16:32 -!- riel was kicked from #xen by riel [foo] 16:32 -!- riel [~riel@riel.netop.oftc.net] has joined #xen 16:32 -!- mode/#xen [+o riel] by ChanServ 16:32 < Sir_Ahzz> I *think* level 10 access grants chanserv admin rights, eg adding/removing users from the list. 16:32 < Sir_Ahzz> i'll figure it out later. :) 16:32 * Sir_Ahzz is gone. work to do. 16:32 -!- mode/#xen [-o riel] by ChanServ 16:32 -!- mode/#xen [+o riel] by ChanServ 16:32 < riel> cool, that works too 16:49 < knewt> Sir_Ahzz: "level #xen list" should tell you what levels are needed for different rights 16:50 < knewt> ah, no. levels, not level, on this network 16:59 -!- greenrd [~greenrd@66-188-75-198.cpe.ga.charter.com] has joined #xen 17:02 < Sir_Ahzz> bah! damn chainsaw vaporlocked on me. 17:02 < Sir_Ahzz> the thing is 12 years old at least. 17:02 < Sir_Ahzz> lots of crud in the carb I bet. 17:24 -!- mdday [~mdday@bi01p1.nc.us.ibm.com] has left #xen [/dev/stomach] 17:31 -!- Method [~Method@stanford.columbia.tresys.com] has quit [Ping timeout: 480 seconds] 17:31 < knewt> MarkW: i was looking through the current xend, and it opens /proc/xen/privcmd several times. there's no problem with actually only opening it once, right? it's just how the code has been structured? 17:33 < MarkW> right 17:33 < hollis> I think aliguori said it wasn't really being opened several times; it just looks like it 17:33 < MarkW> the only reason you open it is you can do ioctl()s on it. as long as you have *a* file descriptor to it, it doesn't matter where you got it from 17:34 < MarkW> hollis: seems quite possible 17:34 < knewt> and if a process running as root opens /proc/xen/privcmd and then gives up root privs then everything will still work? 17:34 < hollis> something about "lazy opening"... but maybe that was vm-tools and not xend? I didn't pay attention 17:34 < knewt> hollis: i think you're thinking about vm-tools 17:34 < hollis> ok 17:34 < MarkW> hollis: that was libxen, not the current tools 17:35 < MarkW> knewt: you need to be able to mlock stuff in order to use the privcmd interface 17:35 < MarkW> no good passing stuff to Xen that's been paged out... 17:35 -!- riel is now known as unriel 17:35 < knewt> hollis: xend creates multiple instances of the python xc object with xen.lowlevel.xc.new(), each one calling xc_interface_open 17:36 < MarkW> knewt: in that case it really is opening it multiple times, i agree 17:36 < knewt> MarkW: ah, so need to keep hold of root privs then? 17:36 -!- MarkW [~MarkWilli@hebble.cl.cam.ac.uk] has quit [Remote host closed the connection] 17:36 -!- MarkW [~MarkWilli@hebble.cl.cam.ac.uk] has joined #xen 17:36 < MarkW> oops, my irc client died 17:41 -!- Method [Method@pcp0010742058pcs.howard01.md.comcast.net] has joined #xen 17:41 -!- Nigelenki [~bluefox@pcp484971pcs.whtmrs01.md.comcast.net] has quit [Read error: Connection reset by peer] 17:42 -!- Nigelenki [~bluefox@pcp484971pcs.whtmrs01.md.comcast.net] has joined #xen 17:43 < knewt> MarkW: ok, so i need mlock. is that it? if so then i can just drop all capabilities other than CAP_IPC_LOCK once i've opened /proc/xen/privcmd 17:43 < MarkW> knewt: i think that should work, yes 17:44 < knewt> since i don't need to execve at any point, so i won't fall foul of the issues with capabilities 18:07 -!- surriel is now known as riel 18:09 -!- hollis [~hollis@pixpat.austin.ibm.com] has quit [Quit: leaving] 18:10 < aliguori> knewt: an alternative approach would be using mlockall(MCL_FUTURE) and then dropping privileges 18:10 < aliguori> that should work 18:11 < aliguori> knewt: i'm not sure you're all that much better off though dropping privileges if you can write to privcmd. You can find creative ways to map the full address space of dom0 and do whatever evil things you'd like to do 18:12 < aliguori> having access to privcmd is far more dangerous than being root. 18:14 < knewt> yeah, i guess 18:20 < eigood> nothing is more dangerous than being root 18:23 < MarkW> eigood: in dom0, i guess that's true 18:24 < MarkW> which implies that privcmd access === dom0's root === everyone else's root, after a fashion 18:24 < eigood> since root can open privcmd, being not root but having access to privcmd doesn't make you more dangerous that root 18:25 < eigood> if domU can open privcmd and access dom0's mem, then xen is broken. 18:25 < eigood> now, if the request goes to dom0, which can arbitrate it, then that's fine 18:25 < MarkW> eigood: it can't unless you make the domU privileged 18:25 < eigood> but, in all honest, domU should not be able to open control c hannels with other domains; data channels, yes, if you already have a control channel open 18:26 < MarkW> not sure what you mean there... 18:27 < eigood> dom0 sets up control channels between different domU, then those domU can communicate with each other 18:27 < eigood> think advanced cluster applications 18:27 < cw> eigood: if you root a domU and send spasticaed messages to another domain via Xen it shouldn't break things. if it does then it's a bug and should be reported and fixed. 18:27 < eigood> I'm speaking hypothetical 18:28 < MarkW> eigood: yeah ok. domUs can't get at each other's control channels directly, so it's ok. 18:29 < MarkW> opening inter-domU data channels will need the grant tables stuff, which is still being baked right now 18:39 < cw> probably there are ways if you try hard and long enough to break things from domU --- but as these get discovered they will be fixed over time 18:43 < MarkW> cw: there are at least 1 or 2 vulnerabilities in Xend, if you count DoS attacks from a domU 18:47 < cw> sure, and im sure given time people will fix these and/or post patches 18:47 < cw> speaking of which is there a bug-db on xensource.com ... i didnt see one but i wasn't looking either 18:48 < MarkW> yes. the new control tools will hopefully eliminate these problems 18:48 < MarkW> i don't think the bug tracker is online yet, i'm not sure what's happening with that 18:49 * cw hopes it's not bugzilla 18:50 < eigood> the latest bugzilla has some nice features 18:50 < eigood> time tracking, better permissions/separator 19:04 -!- rharper [~rharper@pixpat.austin.ibm.com] has quit [Quit: Leaving] 19:06 -!- rocket [~rocket@c-66-41-176-53.hsd1.mn.comcast.net] has quit [Read error: Connection reset by peer] 19:07 < eigood> internal/external user support 19:12 < cw> it's just very complicated and overdesigned for some uses, whatever works though 19:15 < eigood> we haven't used the new version yet tho 19:17 < riel> I'm not aware of any nice bug tracking software 19:17 < aliguori> yeah, neither am i. it's harder to get right than you'd think 19:19 < aliguori> it's hard to denoise a bug tracking system in open source projects too.. we get tons of duplicates in samba because users don't search for a bug before they report it 19:20 -!- hbaum [~hbaum@bi01p1.co.us.ibm.com] has quit [Quit: Client exiting] 19:23 < riel> lets just fix the bugs before users run into them ;) 19:23 < riel> or let the distributions and xensource support people keep track of bugs 19:27 < aliguori> :-) that's fine by me 19:29 < aliguori> riel: are you guys taking xen-related bugs yet in fedora? 19:30 < aliguori> ah, quick search looks like you are :-) 19:30 < eigood> debian has been for a long time 19:32 < aliguori> debian's had good xen support.. i can't figure out what gentoo's doing about xen though. there was a bug with an ebuild but that seems to have disappeared 19:48 -!- cw [cw@adsl-63-202-174-57.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net] has left #xen [] 19:48 -!- cw [cw@adsl-63-202-174-57.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net] has joined #xen 20:00 -!- rusty [~rusty@bh02i525f01.au.ibm.com] has joined #xen 20:16 < riel> hey rusty 20:18 -!- rusty [~rusty@bh02i525f01.au.ibm.com] has quit [Ping timeout: 480 seconds] 20:20 < riel> mmm, I'll try that again when he rejoins 20:20 < riel> ;) 20:24 -!- cw [cw@adsl-63-202-174-57.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net] has left #xen [] 20:24 -!- cw [cw@adsl-63-202-174-57.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net] has joined #xen 20:25 < cw> riel: do you use a registered nick with oftc? and if so do you have working access lists? 20:25 < riel> yes 20:25 < cw> hrm... buggered if i know what im doing wrong then, i have a fairly generous access list and it never recognises me 20:26 -!- mode/#xen [-o unriel] by ChanServ 20:26 -!- mode/#xen [-o riel] by riel 20:29 -!- Beirdo [~gjhurlbu@beirdo.usercloak.oftc.net] has left #xen [Leaving] 20:44 < LaidBack_01> aliguori, gentoo doesn't have a xen maintainer currently - so the project fell off the map for gentoo. 20:46 * riel upgrades rawhide's kernel to today's Xen code 20:46 < riel> (I'll commit it after I've tested it) 20:47 < cw> riel: you run aim7 nightly on smp guests? 20:47 < riel> cw: no 20:47 < riel> I need to automate my tests 20:48 < riel> but it's more important to have the packages out there, so other people can run automated tests ;) 20:50 < Method> riel: a few weeks ago the fedora kernel apparently had a newer version of xen than the xen cvs did, the xen cvs was identifying itself as version 2 but the fedora one was 3, what was the deal with that? 20:51 < riel> I track xen-unstable 20:51 -!- rusty [~rusty@bh02i525f01.au.ibm.com] has joined #xen 20:51 < riel> hi rusty 20:51 < Method> i'm pretty sure thats what cvs i had but maybe not 20:51 * riel waits for the ping timeout ;) 20:52 < riel> Method: I often package the kernel part fresh from the bitkeeper tree 20:52 < MarkW> Method: there's three bitkeeper trees, -stable, -testing, -unstable 20:52 < Method> s/cvs/bk/ 20:52 < Method> yea, i had unstable 20:52 < cw> riel: have you seen the performance regression/problems others are reporting on dumU with vbd? 20:52 < Method> i was fairly confused 20:52 < riel> cw: I haven't tested 20:52 < riel> cw: but Jens Axboe's patch should help 20:52 < MarkW> -stable and -testing are the 2.0 series, -unstable is where the 3.0 series is being developed 20:52 < riel> (and is part of the code changes I want to put into rawhide tonight) 20:53 < Method> $ bk parent 20:53 < Method> Parent repository is bk://xen.bkbits.net/xeno-unstable.bk 20:53 < Method> yea.. maybe it was wierd timing 20:54 < riel> if you've seen a patch on xen-changelog, it's available on bkbits.net 20:55 < riel> (that's where I pull from for the changelog mails) 20:56 < MarkW> Method: something weird must have happened :-) 20:57 < cw> actually, sometimes i notice the parent repo changes to something inconsistent 20:58 < cw> ive had to rm and reclone, pull just barfs or finds conflicts... think that was for xen-2.0-testing.bk but not 100% sure 20:58 < MarkW> cw: could be a bitkeeper bug i guess 20:59 < MarkW> i have (very occasionally) wedged my repo into states that confuse BK 21:14 < cw> MarkW: looks more like the parent was recreated / resynced from somewhere else 21:14 < cw> MarkW: 'bk changes -L' would show i had things the parent didn't --- yet i never made those changes 21:14 < MarkW> ooh, that's a bit weird 21:14 < riel> indeed, Ian did a 'bk undo' once 21:14 < riel> by accident 21:14 < cw> MarkW: maybe the parent has undo's done at times? that would explain it 21:14 < MarkW> the parent being at bkbits? 21:14 < cw> yeah, that's would bo it 21:14 < cw> do it 21:15 < cw> bk cset -x, not undo :) 21:15 < cw> MarkW: yeah, bk://xen.bkbits.net/xeno-unstable.bk or similar... i forget now 21:15 < MarkW> ok 21:15 * MarkW has one more bug to squash before sleep 21:16 < riel> cw: exactly 21:18 < MarkW> is there actually anyone else here on London time? 21:18 < MarkW> (just curious) 21:20 < riel> not this week ;) 21:20 < MarkW> right :-) where are you based usually / on average / nominally (delete as appropriate)? 21:24 -!- Gollum [~gollum@pcp01411681pcs.phnixv01.pa.comcast.net] has joined #xen 21:41 < niv> MarkW: whom are you asking? riel? (EST?). Some of us are in Oregon (PST) where it is now 6:41PM 21:42 < MarkW> anyone and everyone :-) just curious.... on british summer time (where I am) it's 3.42am 21:43 < niv> MarkW: they're working you much too hard up there, laddie ;) 21:43 < MarkW> of course I actually have my own personal timezone, so it's not as bad as it sounds ;-) 21:43 -!- Gollum [~gollum@pcp01411681pcs.phnixv01.pa.comcast.net] has quit [Read error: Operation timed out] 21:44 < MarkW> niv: i have one more bug that i'm determined to squash tonight... it's really bugging me! 21:44 < niv> always handy, yer own time and space :) 21:44 < niv> me too 21:44 < niv> what are you working on? 21:44 < MarkW> I'm hacking on XenFS most of the time now 21:45 < niv> ah 21:45 < niv> how's that coming along? 21:45 < MarkW> (for those who haven't heard of it XenFS is a bit like NFS but exploiting all all the servers / clients being able to share memory directly) 21:46 < MarkW> it's coming along OK now I'm concentrating on it 21:46 < aliguori> MarkW: is a copy available yet? :-) I'm very anxious to see it 21:46 < MarkW> aliguori: it's not ready for other people to look at the code yet - might make them queasy 21:46 < aliguori> heh, i hope it's not too much like NFS :-) 21:46 < MarkW> aliguori: so do I :-D 21:47 < MarkW> i'll make some code available as soon as it's reasonably sane. 21:47 < MarkW> the really interesting stuff is the optimisations i can do later on, however... 21:47 < aliguori> is it a point-to-point file system or can it be shared between 2 or more domains? 21:48 < niv> the world is very short of a good network file system. Xen lends itself to a lot more exploitation and gain here - should be really interesting 21:48 < MarkW> aliguori: the sharing is where things get rather interesting 21:48 < aliguori> niv: yup, it's becomes particularly interesting when you try to match the semantics of multiple platforms 21:48 < aliguori> MarkW: that's what I figured :-) 21:48 < MarkW> things I may look at: 21:49 < MarkW> providing CoW functionality in the server to minimise disk usage 21:50 < MarkW> sharing common memory pages between domains to minimise IO / save memory 21:50 < MarkW> write sharing (i'd like to do this by direct memory sharing but i don't know if that's sane yet) 21:51 < MarkW> but first I have to make the basics sane :-D 21:51 < aliguori> CoW at what level? on a per-block basis or per-inode? 21:51 < MarkW> per inode 21:51 < aliguori> we've been looking at unionfs.. even though it's file-level CoW it's quite useful in a virtualized environment 21:52 < MarkW> we had an NFS server that did CoW at filesystem level but that didn't perform well... 21:52 < MarkW> aliguori: yes that would do the job nicely - whose implementation are you using? 21:52 < aliguori> the FiST one. 21:53 < aliguori> http://www.fsl.cs.sunysb.edu/project-unionfs.html 21:53 < MarkW> ah, ok 21:53 < aliguori> it's quite neat in with xen because you can just share a common read-only device and give each domain a small rw device for CoW 21:53 < niv> aliguori: thanks for the url 21:54 < niv> what are you using it for? 21:54 < aliguori> the only real performance problem i can think of is reading a directory (because unionfs has to merge two directories--if there's a ton of files in both directories it could be expensive) 21:55 < aliguori> niv: we've been looking at it for our ols proposal 21:55 < niv> are you going to present that at ols? 21:55 < aliguori> niv: i've gotta give credit to rharper, i had given up on it but he showed me that i was just being a stupid user :-) 21:56 < aliguori> niv: i don't know. we're looking at a lot of things right now 21:56 < aliguori> the problem with unionfs is that it's not really practical. the code base won't likely make it into the kernel 21:56 < aliguori> the FiST stuff is too clunky 21:57 < niv> aliguori: what else is there on the horizon in this space, though, that you know of? 21:57 < aliguori> niv: well, i've got a personal bias to content-addressable solutions like Venti 21:57 < aliguori> :-) 21:58 < aliguori> there was an old linux CoW filesystem called IFS that eventually was removed from the kernel for lack of maintainership 21:58 < aliguori> sun has one (tranparent file system or something like that i believe) 21:59 < niv> nothing that seems to have really gotten mindshare 21:59 < aliguori> translucent, sorry 21:59 < aliguori> not that i know of. i think TFS is perhaps the most well known 22:00 < aliguori> unless you of course count the copy-on-write features in CIFS :-) 22:01 < riel> MarkW: I'm in Nashua, NH, US - it's 22:02 here 22:01 < riel> (and the kernel RPM compile seems to have finished - testing time in a bit) 22:02 < aliguori> man, i guess i'm the only one in CST.. there normally are a bunch of texas folks here though :-) 22:02 < niv> is SMP compile broken? there were rumors to that effect here which I wasn't paying close attention to 22:03 -!- Nigelenki [~bluefox@pcp484971pcs.whtmrs01.md.comcast.net] has quit [Read error: Connection reset by peer] 22:03 < niv> aliguori: ah, CST, where it's neither too late nor too early :) 22:04 < riel> Subject: [Xen-changelog] Fix queue unplugging in blkback driver. 22:04 < riel> oh great 22:04 < riel> I thought that one was committed way earlier today 22:04 < aliguori> time to rebuild kernel rpms :-) 22:04 < riel> Subject: [Xen-changelog] Patch from Jens Axboe to synchronously flush block 22:04 < riel> oh n/m, it was 22:08 < riel> two patches in the same area 22:10 < riel> if this stuff breaks, I'll try again tomorrow morning ;) 22:10 < riel> with newer code 22:13 < niv> riel: i think you have everything so far, this might work 22:13 < riel> I only have the second one - not the first one 22:15 < riel> ok, looks like I need a newer xen, too 22:16 < riel> NET: Registered protocol family 17 22:16 < riel> inst3: 0000 [#1] 22:16 < riel> SMP end_stop disable_local_APIC 22:16 < riel> (XEN) 22:16 < riel> Domain 0 shutdown: rebooting machine. 22:16 < riel> this is annoying too 22:17 < riel> ok, I'll look at this tomorrow 22:17 < riel> enough for today 22:18 * niv is going to get some dinner.. 22:18 -!- niv [~niv@bi01p1.co.us.ibm.com] has quit [Quit: ChatZilla 0.9.61 [Mozilla rv:1.7.5/20041217]] 22:18 * MarkW has conquered another xenfs bug 22:19 < MarkW> time for bed :-) 22:19 -!- Nigelenki [~bluefox@pcp484971pcs.whtmrs01.md.comcast.net] has joined #xen 22:19 -!- MarkW [~MarkWilli@hebble.cl.cam.ac.uk] has quit [Quit: Kopete 0.9.2 : http://kopete.kde.org] 22:37 < riel> ok cool, the kernel boots with a new xen 22:45 * riel pushes both xen and the new kernel into the build system 22:47 < schweeb> riel: which version of python are you using with the userspace stuff? 22:47 < riel> oh crud ! 22:47 < schweeb> we've had a couple problems with 2.4 on ubuntu 22:47 < riel> Call Trace: 22:47 < riel> [] blk_run_queue+0x1a/0x50 22:47 < riel> [] blkio_schedule+0x134/0x160 22:47 < riel> [] default_wake_function+0x0/0x20 22:47 < riel> [] blkio_schedule+0x0/0x160 22:47 < riel> [] kernel_thread_helper+0x5/0x18 22:47 < riel> shit 22:47 < schweeb> heh 22:47 < riel> so I do need both patches 22:54 < rusty> Hi Rik! 22:56 -!- jeroney [~jeroney@rrcs-24-173-250-83.sw.biz.rr.com] has joined #xen 22:59 < riel> rusty: time to put the latest (and greatest?) xen code in rawhide ;) 22:59 * riel just pulled and fixed up linux-2.6.11-xen.patch 23:00 < rusty> riel: cool. 23:02 < riel> (for the second time today) 23:02 < riel> the code I had yesterday was stable 23:02 < riel> it survived an overnight aim7 run, on a xenU guest with 3 cpus 23:22 < jeroney> riel: good to see xen back in rawhide :-) 23:23 < riel> yeah --- Log closed Thu Mar 31 23:59:00 2005