Pkg xen devel - Jan 2019 - Bug#908771: HP Proliant iLO Virtual Serial Port gets stuck during Xen boot at "Brought up "

Package: src:xen
Version: 4.11.1~pre.20180911.5acdd26fdc+dfsg-1~exp1

HP Proliant servers feature a virtual serial port which can be accessed
by setting up an ssh session to the management interface (ilo) and then
doing vsp:

---- >8 ----

-$ ssh luser at box-ilo
luser at box-ilo's password:
User:luser logged-in to box-ilo

iLO Advanced 2.61 at  Jul 27 2018
Server Name: box (CZXXXXXXXX)
Server Power: On

</>hpiLO-> vsp

Virtual Serial Port Active: COM2

Starting virtual serial port.
Press 'ESC (' to return to the CLI Session.

Debian GNU/Linux 9 box hvc0

box login:

---- >8 ----

Now, if I e.g. use this...

xen command line: [...] com2=115200,8n1 console=com2,vga
linux command line: [...] console=tty0 console=hvc0

...then I can access all xen and linux serial console functionality
remotely.

However, during boot, there's a chance (it feels like ~40% chance) that
while booting Xen, this serial console gets stuck. When it does it's
*always* at exactly the same point, which is right after "Brought up "

So, console output is for example:

---- >8 ----

[...]
(XEN)  - Virtual Interrupt Delivery
(XEN)  - Posted Interrupt Processing
(XEN)  - VMCS shadowing
(XEN)  - VM Functions
(XEN) HVM: ASIDs enabled.
(XEN) HVM: VMX enabled
(XEN) HVM: Hardware Assisted Paging (HAP) detected
(XEN) HVM: HAP page sizes: 4kB, 2MB, 1GB
(XEN) Brought up

---- >8 ----

And then it hangs. Input is also not echoed back.

When doing a reboot of the server again, the queued output starts
appearing during shutdown, but quickly gets killed off when the hardware
reboots and the screen empties.

---- >8 ----

20 CPUs
(XEN) Dom0 has maximum 840 PIRQs
(XEN)  Xen  kernel: 64-bit, lsb, compat32
(XEN)  Dom0 kernel: 64-bit, PAE, lsb, paddr 0x1000000 -> 0x266a000
(XEN) PHYSICAL MEMORY ARRANGEMENT:
(XEN)  Dom0 alloc.:   000000480c000000->0000004810000000 (1025803 pages
to be allocated)
(XEN)  Init. ramdisk: 000000487e70b000->000000487ffff4af
(XEN) VIRTUAL MEMORY ARRANGEMENT:
(XEN)  Loaded kernel: ffffffff81000000->ffffffff8266a000
(XEN)  Init. ramdisk: 0000000000000000->0000000000000000
(XEN)  Phys-Mach map: 0000008000000000->0000008000800000
(XEN)  Start info:    ffffffff8266a000->ffffffff8266a4b4
(XEN)  Xenstore ring: 0000000000000000->0000000000000000
(XEN)  Console ring:  0000000000000000->0000000000000000
(XEN)  Page tables:   ffffffff8266b000->ffffffff82682000
(XEN)  Boot stack:    ffffffff82682000->ffffffff82683000
(XEN)  TOTAL:         ffffffff80000000->ffffffff82800000
(XEN)  ENTRY ADDRESS: ffffffff82433180
(XEN) Dom0 has maximum 4 VCPUs
[...]

---- >8 ----

I've seen this happen on all HP Proliant dl360 gear we have, g7, gen8
and gen9 (and we only have dl360). I think I first saw it with Xen 4.4
in Jessie long ago, but my memory may be failing, and it might as well
also have happened with 4.1 in Wheezy already.

Since I want a working serial console (the alternative is some windows
program to show the VGA, in which I can't copy paste etc), currently we
always check the vsp after a reboot and reboot again until it doesn't
hang. This is obviously a big annoyance and waste of time.

I'd like to find out if this is a bug in Xen, or if not, if it can be
worked around. It feels like some kind of race condition thing.

-- 
Hans van Kranenburg

tags 908771 + moreinfo
thanks

Hi Hans,

This is about the bug report about the serial console getting stuck with
HP proliant servers that you filed before in the Debian bug tracker,
against the Xen packages.

Your bug report was targeted at a Xen package in a Debian distribution
older than the current stable (Stretch).

Can you please help us by confirming that any of the following scenarios
does apply to your situation?

* I had this problem a long time ago. It was never solved, but I found a
workaround, which is ...
* I had this problem a long time ago, and I solved it by not using Xen
any more, but by doing ...
* I still experience this problem, and I'm still using Xen
3.2/4.1/4.4/etc. I cannot upgrade to Debian Stretch or Buster because ...
* I had this problem, and since upgrading to Stretch / Buster / ? it
seems it was solved, and I forgot to report it again. Please close it,
thanks.
* Other: ...

Note that even if you found a solution, it's still very useful to report
it back to our bug tracker. There might be someone else running into the
same problem, who can be helped with your information.

Please note that unless there's a response within a month from now, we
will close the bug report. If you discover this message later, and this
case is important to you, then you can try unarchiving the bug and
replying to it, or reach out to the maintainers email list at
pkg-xen-devel at lists.alioth.debian.org (no subscription required) and
post a message.

Thanks,
Hans van Kranenburg

Processing commands for control at bugs.debian.org:
> tags 908771 + moreinfo
Bug #908771 [src:xen] HP Proliant iLO Virtual Serial Port gets stuck during Xen
boot at "Brought up "
Added tag(s) moreinfo.
> thanks
Stopping processing here.

Please contact me if you need assistance.
-- 
908771: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=908771
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner at bugs.debian.org with problems

Your message dated Sat, 2 Feb 2019 21:53:03 +0000
with message-id <ffe321f3-d889-67d4-e93b-68d881651e1a at mendix.com>
and subject line Re: HP Proliant iLO Virtual Serial Port gets stuck during Xen
boot at "Brought up "
has caused the Debian Bug report #908771,
regarding HP Proliant iLO Virtual Serial Port gets stuck during Xen boot at
"Brought up "
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

(NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what this
message is talking about, this may indicate a serious mail system
misconfiguration somewhere. Please contact owner at bugs.debian.org
immediately.)


-- 
908771: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=908771
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner at bugs.debian.org with problems
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