On Tuesday 23 October 2007 18:22:00 ropers wrote:
> Hi Christoph,
>
> Right now, on the OpenBSD misc mailing list, there is this discussion:
> http://www.sigmasoft.com/~openbsd/archives/html/openbsd-misc/2007-10/thread
>s.html#01149 about OpenBSD/Xen.
>
> We last spoke last year, when I put your BSDtalk interview transcript
> online at http://ropersonline.com/openbsd/xen .
>
> It seems to me that most people on the misc mailing list currently are
> not very aware of your OpenBSD Xen port. Could I possibly ask you to
> participate in the discussion? I feel that you (and Theo) are the only
> guys who can provide authoritative answers on the issue.
>
> Some of the questions that I feel are unclear are:
> - Was your porting work fully completed? IIRC it was, but please clarify.
DomU support is ready. Dom0 is work in progress.
(apart from use-after-free bugs in MI buffer-cache and filesystem code,
which damages filesystem.)
Dom0 is work in progress, but is stalling on a NULL-pointer bug
in uvm_pglistalloc_simple().
This code piece in the kernel reproduces this crash:
void foo(void)
{
struct pglist mlist;
uvm_pglistalloc(PAGE_SIZE * 64, 0, 0xffffffff, 0, 0, &mlist, 64, 0);
}
I didn't investigate further into this, because I have put my focus
on the xen-kernel and xen-tools to compile on OpenBSD and NetBSD
out-of-the-box. To finish this task, I need some things in OpenBSD:
- aio(2) support
- POSIX ptsname() (this is used in a python binding module)
- newer gcc version due to a structure padding bug with
an alignment attribute hidden in a typedef (this is fixed in gcc 3.4)
I use gcc 4.2 from the ports FYI.
- I need i386 headers and libc on OpenBSD/amd64 for 64bit builds.
gcc -m32 defines __i386__ so it is possible to distinguish if a
#include <stdint.h> must provide 32bit or 64bit integer type definitions.
Oh, a libc header cleanup is nice to have. I don't know why uvm kernel headers
should be in /usr/include/uvm/, for example.
> - Is your port still being maintained? Can it be run with OpenBSD
> -current or 4.2?
4.1. It needs an update. Maybe some of the nasty MI bugs are gone.
> - It seems to me that your port didn't achieve wide recognition and
> acclaim because of a lack of publicity.
I'm not a marketing guy.
> - AFAIK your OpenBSD/Xen port code hasn't found its way into the
> official OpenBSD distribution. Is this correct?
yes.
> - Are there any reasons why your code didn't go into the official
> OpenBSD distro? Was it lack of awareness? Have you ever talked to Theo
> and/or other central OpenBSD people?
I haven't found someone who is willing to commit the diffs.
> - Is there any hope that your port might still become part of the
> official OpenBSD distribution?
> (Theo: Could you possibly comment as well?)
I don't know.
> I'd personally be very interested to see your port become part of the
> official distribution, but I sadly can't code myself, so all I can do
> is ask and hope. :)
>
> Once again, thanks for your hard work. :)
You're welcome.
> Many thanks in advance and kind regards,
> Jens Ropers
