Xen users - Jun 2011 - PCI-passthru Infiniband card panics the domU at startup

Dear sir,

        we are setting up a Xen-based computing environment, but one problem
frustrated us: we can not use our Qlogic Infiniband network adapter in HVM
mode, the domU kernel panic at the point of starting udev. I don''t know
what
is wrong but actually I even have not installed the infiniband drivers when
it panic, should a passthru device cause this?

        Xen hypervisor we used is the package along with Debian 6.0, with
kernel version 2.6.32 patched with Xen source, and I started with
''iommu=1''
argument. DomU OS is RHEL6, which boots and works all right without
Infiniband card assigned. The logs, pci information and dom0 dmesg are
contained in attachment (So long to paste them here).

       So can you give us some suggestions on how to activate the Infiniband
card? Or do you know whether this kind of devices can be supported in domU?

thanks for help!


-- 
Yan Zhai (翟琰)
PACMAN group
High Performance Computer Institute
Computer Science Department
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Phone: (+86)135-8196-0265
Email: jerry.z.mystery@gmail.com






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

On 28/06/2011 13:12, Yan Zhai wrote:
> Dear sir,
>
>         we are setting up a Xen-based computing environment, but one 
> problem frustrated us: we can not use our Qlogic Infiniband network 
> adapter in HVM mode, the domU kernel panic at the point of starting 
> udev. I don''t know what is wrong but actually I even have not 
> installed the infiniband drivers when it panic, should a passthru 
> device cause this?
The Linux kernel comes with Infiniband drivers. Just because you
haven''t
installed OFED doesn''t mean you don''t have drivers talking to
the card.
You could try blacklisting/mv''ing them to make sure they
aren''t loaded
at all. Make sure they''re not in the initrd either.

Also, compile your kernel with debug options. Maybe a serial link 
debugger. See what happens. "I have a kernel panic" is pretty useless
if
you''re looking for help. What Xen version do you run ? Which HCA model 
do you have ? What PCI chipset ? Have you tried in PV mode
?
>         Xen hypervisor we used is the package along with Debian 6.0, 
> with kernel version 2.6.32 patched with Xen source, and I started with 
> ''iommu=1'' argument. DomU OS is RHEL6, which boots and
works all right
> without Infiniband card assigned. The logs, pci information and dom0 
> dmesg are contained in attachment (So long to paste them here).
>
I had problems with Mellanox Infiniband cards last year. Basically, the 
drivers did not map PCI memory the way it should be mapped in
Xen.
>        So can you give us some suggestions on how to activate the 
> Infiniband card? Or do you know whether this kind of devices can be 
> supported in domU?
Ask Qlogic. They''ll tell you if they support Xen. If they
don''t, you''ll
need to get into kernel debugging or find someone who can do it for you.


-- 
Vivien Bernet-Rollande
Systems&  Networking Engineer
Alter Way Hosting


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