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Mark Cave-Ayland

2006-Oct-05 13:11 UTC

[Xen-users] Issues running WinXP using hvmloader

Hi everyone,

I''m experiencing a couple of issues running WinXP under Xen 3.0.2 with
a
dual-core AMD64 with SVM support and wondered if anyone could help me
out. I use Ubuntu Linux as my main OS but often need to use Windows for
development purposes, so installing WinXP under Xen seemed almost too
good to be true - Xen is a great piece of software :)

Here are the issues I have found whilst working on a MingW development
environment under WinXP running as domU:


	1) If I try and start the WinXP dom with vcpus > 1 in my
	/etc/xen/winxp then the dom fails to start (this was an
	attempt to see if I could debug multi-threaded code under Xen)

	2) If I run a compiled C program that causes a crash (such as
	referencing a NULL pointer) then Windows brings up its normal
	crash dialog box offering to send the information to MS. However
	when I try and continue after the crash, the WinXP dom reboots
	again. This occurs even when I have attached MingW''s gdb to the
	process to try and catch the exception - is there a way to catch
	this so it doesn''t reboot the dom?

	3) Normally I terminate WinXP running in my dom by using the
	Start -> Shutdown option and then closing the hvmloader window
	when the "It is safe to turn off your computer" notice appears.
	Unfortunately this still leaves a Zombie dom which shows up
	under "xm list". Trying "xm destroy" or "xm
shutdown" doesn''t
	remove the zombie dom. The state flags for these zombies are
	listed as "----cd".

	4) If I have started a WinXP dom during my session and
	shutdown my dom0 PC using "shutdown -h now" then Xen crashes. It
	appears that all applications have shut down, and the Xen
	console output appears back on the screen, but instead of
	completing the shutdown, Xen crashes and emits a
	stack trace on screen before immediately rebooting my PC.
	Unfortunately the reboot happens too quickly to write down
	the offending information, but if someone could talk me through
	how to capture it then I would be happy to help.


If anyone could help me solve these issues, or point me towards any
relevant patches/resources then it would be greatly appreciated.


Many thanks,

Mark.



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Petersson, Mats

2006-Oct-05 13:32 UTC

head link

RE: [Xen-users] Issues running WinXP using hvmloader

> -----Original Message-----
> From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com 
> [mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of 
> Mark Cave-Ayland
> Sent: 05 October 2006 14:12
> To: xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> Subject: [Xen-users] Issues running WinXP using hvmloader
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I''m experiencing a couple of issues running WinXP under Xen 
> 3.0.2 with a
> dual-core AMD64 with SVM support and wondered if anyone could help me
> out. I use Ubuntu Linux as my main OS but often need to use 
> Windows for
> development purposes, so installing WinXP under Xen seemed almost too
> good to be true - Xen is a great piece of software :)
> 
> Here are the issues I have found whilst working on a MingW development
> environment under WinXP running as domU:
> 
> 
> 	1) If I try and start the WinXP dom with vcpus > 1 in my
> 	/etc/xen/winxp then the dom fails to start (this was an
> 	attempt to see if I could debug multi-threaded code under Xen)
This may be to do with old version of Xen - or perhaps you haven''t got
APIC and/or ACPI enabled in the config?
See below about trying a later release of Xen. 
> 
> 	2) If I run a compiled C program that causes a crash (such as
> 	referencing a NULL pointer) then Windows brings up its normal
> 	crash dialog box offering to send the information to MS. However
> 	when I try and continue after the crash, the WinXP dom reboots
> 	again. This occurs even when I have attached MingW''s gdb to the
> 	process to try and catch the exception - is there a way to catch
> 	this so it doesn''t reboot the dom?
Hmm. So something like:
	void main(void)
	{
		int *p = NULL;
		p = 47;
	}
Causes WinXP to reboot? It shouldn''t, that''s for sure. Any
chance you
can try this in 3.0.3-RC2?
> 
> 	3) Normally I terminate WinXP running in my dom by using the
> 	Start -> Shutdown option and then closing the hvmloader window
> 	when the "It is safe to turn off your computer" notice appears.
> 	Unfortunately this still leaves a Zombie dom which shows up
> 	under "xm list". Trying "xm destroy" or "xm
shutdown" doesn''t
> 	remove the zombie dom. The state flags for these zombies are
> 	listed as "----cd".
ACPI disabled or enabled?> 
> 	4) If I have started a WinXP dom during my session and
> 	shutdown my dom0 PC using "shutdown -h now" then Xen crashes. It
> 	appears that all applications have shut down, and the Xen
> 	console output appears back on the screen, but instead of
> 	completing the shutdown, Xen crashes and emits a
> 	stack trace on screen before immediately rebooting my PC.
> 	Unfortunately the reboot happens too quickly to write down
> 	the offending information, but if someone could talk me through
> 	how to capture it then I would be happy to help.
If you have the ability to connect a serial port to the Xen-machine, you
can capture it in a terminal program on another machine by adding a
serial output to the Xen-line in grub.conf:
	com1=115200,8n1 console=com1 sync_console
Alternatively, you can probably write it down by adding "noreboot" to
the Xen-line in grub.conf.

I hope this is of some help. 

--
Mats> 
> 
> If anyone could help me solve these issues, or point me towards any
> relevant patches/resources then it would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> 
> Many thanks,
> 
> Mark.
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-users mailing list
> Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
> 
> 
> 


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Mark Cave-Ayland

2006-Oct-05 14:43 UTC

head link

RE: [Xen-users] Issues running WinXP using hvmloader

Hi Mats,


On Thu, 2006-10-05 at 15:32 +0200, Petersson, Mats wrote:
> > Here are the issues I have found whilst working on a MingW development
> > environment under WinXP running as domU:
> > 
> > 
> > 	1) If I try and start the WinXP dom with vcpus > 1 in my
> > 	/etc/xen/winxp then the dom fails to start (this was an
> > 	attempt to see if I could debug multi-threaded code under Xen)
> 
> This may be to do with old version of Xen - or perhaps you haven''t
got
> APIC and/or ACPI enabled in the config?
> See below about trying a later release of Xen. 
Ah this could be the problem - at the moment I can''t boot Xen 3.0.2
without using the noapic option (I was also unable to boot the standard
Ubuntu kernel without adding noapic either). As suggested by the kernel,
I''ve added the apic=debug option to see the response. Unfortunately I
don''t have a serial cable to hand, but I do have a digital camera:
http://www.ilande.co.uk/xen/apic_debug.jpg.
> > 
> > 	2) If I run a compiled C program that causes a crash (such as
> > 	referencing a NULL pointer) then Windows brings up its normal
> > 	crash dialog box offering to send the information to MS. However
> > 	when I try and continue after the crash, the WinXP dom reboots
> > 	again. This occurs even when I have attached MingW''s gdb to
the
> > 	process to try and catch the exception - is there a way to catch
> > 	this so it doesn''t reboot the dom?
> 
> Hmm. So something like:
> 	void main(void)
> 	{
> 		int *p = NULL;
> 		p = 47;
> 	}
> Causes WinXP to reboot? It shouldn''t, that''s for sure.
Any chance you
> can try this in 3.0.3-RC2?
This one is strange because while I have one program that segfaults
immediately, the example above doesn''t cause the dom to crash (in fact
it doesn''t even bring up the standard MS crash dialog). However, if I
attach MingW''s gdb to the process and run the above example then it
does
cause the dom to crash and reboot!?

Is there a binary download of 3.0.3-RC2 available for x86_64 since I
don''t have a Xen build environment setup yet? 
 > > 	3) Normally I terminate WinXP running in my dom by using the
> > 	Start -> Shutdown option and then closing the hvmloader window
> > 	when the "It is safe to turn off your computer" notice
appears.
> > 	Unfortunately this still leaves a Zombie dom which shows up
> > 	under "xm list". Trying "xm destroy" or "xm
shutdown" doesn''t
> > 	remove the zombie dom. The state flags for these zombies are
> > 	listed as "----cd".
> 
> ACPI disabled or enabled?
I think this is disabled, since I don''t have any acpi options in
my /etc/xen/winxp file. I shall try again with this enabled and see if
it makes any difference.
> > 	4) If I have started a WinXP dom during my session and
> > 	shutdown my dom0 PC using "shutdown -h now" then Xen
crashes. It
> > 	appears that all applications have shut down, and the Xen
> > 	console output appears back on the screen, but instead of
> > 	completing the shutdown, Xen crashes and emits a
> > 	stack trace on screen before immediately rebooting my PC.
> > 	Unfortunately the reboot happens too quickly to write down
> > 	the offending information, but if someone could talk me through
> > 	how to capture it then I would be happy to help.
> 
> If you have the ability to connect a serial port to the Xen-machine, you
> can capture it in a terminal program on another machine by adding a
> serial output to the Xen-line in grub.conf:
> 	com1=115200,8n1 console=com1 sync_console
> Alternatively, you can probably write it down by adding
"noreboot" to
> the Xen-line in grub.conf.
Again, I have no serial cable but I managed to grab a snapshot of the
crash: http://www.ilande.co.uk/xen/shutdown_crash.jpg.
> I hope this is of some help. 
Absolutely yes! :)


Many thanks,

Mark.



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Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users

Mark Cave-Ayland

2006-Oct-05 16:17 UTC

head link

RE: [Xen-users] Issues running WinXP using hvmloader

On Thu, 2006-10-05 at 15:44 +0100, Mark Cave-Ayland wrote:
> > This may be to do with old version of Xen - or perhaps you
haven''t got
> > APIC and/or ACPI enabled in the config?
> > See below about trying a later release of Xen. 
> 
> Ah this could be the problem - at the moment I can''t boot Xen
3.0.2
> without using the noapic option (I was also unable to boot the standard
> Ubuntu kernel without adding noapic either). As suggested by the kernel,
> I''ve added the apic=debug option to see the response.
Unfortunately I
> don''t have a serial cable to hand, but I do have a digital camera:
> http://www.ilande.co.uk/xen/apic_debug.jpg.
I''ve done a bit more googling and as a result I''ve just
updated to the
latest experimental (pre-release) BIOS and I can now boot Xen without
the noapic option :)
> > > 	2) If I run a compiled C program that causes a crash (such as
> > > 	referencing a NULL pointer) then Windows brings up its normal
> > > 	crash dialog box offering to send the information to MS. However
> > > 	when I try and continue after the crash, the WinXP dom reboots
> > > 	again. This occurs even when I have attached MingW''s
gdb to the
> > > 	process to try and catch the exception - is there a way to catch
> > > 	this so it doesn''t reboot the dom?
> > 
> > Hmm. So something like:
> > 	void main(void)
> > 	{
> > 		int *p = NULL;
> > 		p = 47;
> > 	}
> > Causes WinXP to reboot? It shouldn''t, that''s for
sure. Any chance you
> > can try this in 3.0.3-RC2?
Even with the APIC being detected, attaching gdb to the above program in
MingW still reboots the WinXP dom. I haven''t managed to locate any
3.0.3-RC2 binaries yet...
> > > 	3) Normally I terminate WinXP running in my dom by using the
> > > 	Start -> Shutdown option and then closing the hvmloader
window
> > > 	when the "It is safe to turn off your computer" notice
appears.
> > > 	Unfortunately this still leaves a Zombie dom which shows up
> > > 	under "xm list". Trying "xm destroy" or
"xm shutdown" doesn''t
> > > 	remove the zombie dom. The state flags for these zombies are
> > > 	listed as "----cd".
> > 
> > ACPI disabled or enabled?
> 
> I think this is disabled, since I don''t have any acpi options in
> my /etc/xen/winxp file. I shall try again with this enabled and see if
> it makes any difference.
I''ve now added the options "acpi = 1" and "apic =
1" to
my /etc/xen/winxp file but I still get a zombie dom when I shutdown my
WinXP dom. Any other ideas?
> > > 	4) If I have started a WinXP dom during my session and
> > > 	shutdown my dom0 PC using "shutdown -h now" then Xen
crashes. It
> > > 	appears that all applications have shut down, and the Xen
> > > 	console output appears back on the screen, but instead of
> > > 	completing the shutdown, Xen crashes and emits a
> > > 	stack trace on screen before immediately rebooting my PC.
> > > 	Unfortunately the reboot happens too quickly to write down
> > > 	the offending information, but if someone could talk me through
> > > 	how to capture it then I would be happy to help.
(cut)
> Again, I have no serial cable but I managed to grab a snapshot of the
> crash: http://www.ilande.co.uk/xen/shutdown_crash.jpg.
Just to confirm that this still occurs when I attempt to shutdown dom0
with Xen now detecting the APIC correctly.


Kind regards,

Mark.



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Mark Cave-Ayland

2006-Oct-06 09:38 UTC

head link

RE: [Xen-users] Issues running WinXP using hvmloader

Hi Mats,

Thanks for your help so far with this. I took the plunge yesterday of
using Mercurial to download the latest xen-3.0.3-testing.hg repository
from http://xenbits.xensource.com/ and it looks as if things have
definitely improved:

- WinXP doms now shutdown cleanly without leaving zombies
- My PC no longer crashes when I do a "shutdown -h now"

I still can''t start up a WinXP dom with "vcpus = 2" in the
configuration
file at the moment; rather than crashing the dom like 3.0.2 did,
3.0.3-testing switches back to 1 CPU before loading. Trying to alter the
vcpus using "xm vcpu-set" doesn''t change the vcpu value
either.

The only other issue is that I still can''t debug a program using
MingW''s
gdb under a WinXP running in a Xen dom, which I think may be related to
something in the WinXP debug API, or the way that Xen handles segfaults.
Here is the test program that I am using under MingW/msys:


#include <stdlib.h>

int main()
{
char buffer[2];

printf("Hello World!");

strcpy(buffer, "This is a very long string designed to do bad
things");
}


If I run this under a Xen WinXP dom then WinXP crashes as expected,
throwing up the normal MS crash dialog. Normally closing the crash
dialog results in termination of the program that produced it. Under Xen
I find I have to manually terminate the crashed program by using Task
Manager or invoking Ctrl-C from the console that launched it!

The other issue is that gdb still can''t attach to a program to debug
it;
attempting to attach gdb to any process results in a SIGTRAP in part of
the debugging API and it is impossible to get past this point. The
function where the SIGTRAP occurs is always the same, "ntdll!
DbgUiConnectToDbg", no matter which process you try and attach to. This
makes me think that something in this function is raising an exception
which is being incorrectly handled.


$ gdb -p 500
GNU gdb 6.3
Copyright 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you
are
welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain
conditions.
Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
There is absolutely no warranty for GDB.  Type "show warranty" for
details.
This GDB was configured as "i686-pc-mingw32".
Attaching to process 500
error reading the process''s file name: 5
[Switching to thread 500.0x2e4]
(gdb) bt
#0  0x7c901230 in ntdll!DbgUiConnectToDbg () from C:\WINDOWS\system32
\ntdll.dll
#1  0x7c9507a8 in ntdll!KiIntSystemCall () from C:\WINDOWS\system32
\ntdll.dll
#2  0x00000005 in ?? ()
#3  0x00000004 in ?? ()
#4  0x00000001 in ?? ()

...etc...


Any other thoughts?


Kind regards,

Mark.




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Petersson, Mats

2006-Oct-06 09:53 UTC

head link

RE: [Xen-users] Issues running WinXP using hvmloader

> -----Original Message-----
> From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com 
> [mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of 
> Mark Cave-Ayland
> Sent: 06 October 2006 10:38
> To: Petersson, Mats
> Cc: xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> Subject: RE: [Xen-users] Issues running WinXP using hvmloader
> 
> Hi Mats,
> 
> Thanks for your help so far with this. I took the plunge yesterday of
> using Mercurial to download the latest xen-3.0.3-testing.hg repository
> from http://xenbits.xensource.com/ and it looks as if things have
> definitely improved:
> 
> - WinXP doms now shutdown cleanly without leaving zombies
> - My PC no longer crashes when I do a "shutdown -h now"
> 
> I still can''t start up a WinXP dom with "vcpus = 2" in
the
> configuration
> file at the moment; rather than crashing the dom like 3.0.2 did,
> 3.0.3-testing switches back to 1 CPU before loading. Trying 
> to alter the
> vcpus using "xm vcpu-set" doesn''t change the vcpu value
either.
> 
> The only other issue is that I still can''t debug a program 
> using MingW''s
> gdb under a WinXP running in a Xen dom, which I think may be 
> related to
> something in the WinXP debug API, or the way that Xen handles 
> segfaults.
> Here is the test program that I am using under MingW/msys:
> 
> 
> #include <stdlib.h>
> 
> int main()
> {
> char buffer[2];
> 
> printf("Hello World!");
> 
> strcpy(buffer, "This is a very long string designed to do bad 
> things");
> }
> 
> 
> If I run this under a Xen WinXP dom then WinXP crashes as expected,
> throwing up the normal MS crash dialog. Normally closing the crash
> dialog results in termination of the program that produced 
> it. Under Xen
> I find I have to manually terminate the crashed program by using Task
> Manager or invoking Ctrl-C from the console that launched it!
No clue why this would happen... 
> 
> The other issue is that gdb still can''t attach to a program 
> to debug it;
> attempting to attach gdb to any process results in a SIGTRAP 
> in part of
> the debugging API and it is impossible to get past this point. The
> function where the SIGTRAP occurs is always the same, "ntdll!
> DbgUiConnectToDbg", no matter which process you try and 
> attach to. This
> makes me think that something in this function is raising an exception
> which is being incorrectly handled.
> 
> 
> $ gdb -p 500
> GNU gdb 6.3
> Copyright 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
> GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public 
> License, and you
> are
> welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain
> conditions.
> Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
> There is absolutely no warranty for GDB.  Type "show warranty"
for
> details.
> This GDB was configured as "i686-pc-mingw32".
> Attaching to process 500
> error reading the process''s file name: 5
> [Switching to thread 500.0x2e4]
> (gdb) bt
> #0  0x7c901230 in ntdll!DbgUiConnectToDbg () from C:\WINDOWS\system32
> \ntdll.dll
> #1  0x7c9507a8 in ntdll!KiIntSystemCall () from C:\WINDOWS\system32
> \ntdll.dll
> #2  0x00000005 in ?? ()
> #3  0x00000004 in ?? ()
> #4  0x00000001 in ?? ()
> 
> ...etc...
> 
> 
> Any other thoughts?
Not really - it looks like a problem with reading the other process''s
memory - why that should happen, I don''t really know. 

Sorry to not be of much help here... 

--
Mats> 
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Mark.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-users mailing list
> Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
> 
> 
> 


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Xen users - Oct 2006 - Issues running WinXP using hvmloader

[Xen-users] Issues running WinXP using hvmloader

RE: [Xen-users] Issues running WinXP using hvmloader

RE: [Xen-users] Issues running WinXP using hvmloader

RE: [Xen-users] Issues running WinXP using hvmloader

RE: [Xen-users] Issues running WinXP using hvmloader

RE: [Xen-users] Issues running WinXP using hvmloader