Xen 4.6 RC5 test instructions

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Icon Info.png If you come to this page before or after the Test Day is completed, your testing is still valuable, and you can use the information on this page to test, post any bugs and test reports to xen-devel@. If this page is more than two weeks old when you arrive here, please check the current schedule and see if a similar but more recent Test Day is planned or has already happened.


What needs to be tested

General things:

  • Making sure that Xen 4.6 compiles and installs properly on different software configurations; particularly on distros
  • Making sure that Xen 4.6, along with appropriately up-to-date kernels, work on different hardware.


For more ideas about what to test, please see Testing Xen.

Installing

Getting RC5

  • xen: with a recent enough git (>= 1.7.8.2) just pull from the proper tag (4.6.0-rc5) from the main repo directly:
git clone -b 4.6.0-rc5 git://xenbits.xen.org/xen.git

With an older git version (and/or if that does not work, e.g., complaining with a message like this: Remote branch 4.6.0-rc5 not found in upstream origin, using HEAD instead), do the following: 

git clone git://xenbits.xen.org/xen.git ; cd xen ; git checkout 4.6.0-rc5

Building

Instructions are available for building Xen on Linux, NetBSD, and FreeBSD

Known issues

Test instructions

General

  • Remove any old versions of Xen toolstack and userspace binaries (including qemu).
  • Remove any udev files under /etc because Xen 4.6 doesn't use those anymore.
  • Download and install the most recent Xen 4.6 RC, as described above. Make sure to check the README and INSTALL for changes in required development libraries and procedures. Some particular things to note:

Once you have Xen 4.6 RC installed check that you can install a guest etc and use it in the ways which you normally would, i.e. that your existing guest configurations, scripts etc still work.

Specific RC5 things

None at this time.

Specific ARM Test Instructions

Follow Xen_ARM_with_Virtualization_Extensions

Specific x86 Test Instructions

vNUMA for HVM

Xen 4.6 supports configuring virtual NUMA topology for HVM guests. It's not required for the host to have NUMA capability to use vNUMA. See xl manual for configuration syntax.

Save / restore and migrate guest with vNUMA configured will lead to unstable performance.

Migration v2

Migration v2 is supposed to work transparently to end users. There are two things that worth testing:

  • Migrate from 4.6 to 4.6
  • Migrate from 4.5 to 4.6

Just use xl migrate command to test migration.

Migrating Linux 3.19+ 32bit PV kernel was broken, it's now fixed.

Storage driver domain

The removal of udev rules exposed a latent bug affecting storage driver domain setup. It manifested as storage driver failing to start up. This is fixed in RC4.

Intel PSR technology

Fixed the wrong assumption that socket numbers are contiguous. Fixed in RC5.

Intel errata AVR41

HVM guests on Intel Avoton processors are broken due to errata AVR41. Please test HVM guest creation. HVM guest on broken chips should work again. HVM guest on non-broken chips should not be affected. This is fixed in RC5.

Credit scheduler bug

A bug would cause hypervisor to crash in rare configuration. To test if this bug is fixed, run Dom0 in cpu pool with default credit scheduler, run another HVM guest in another cpu pool that uses a different scheduler. Fixed in RC5.

IOMMU TLB flush bug

Please test device passthrough to see if there is any regression. Permission changes should also result in TLB flush. Fixed in RC5.

Reporting Bugs (& Issues)

  • Use Freenode IRC channel #xentest to discuss questions interactively
  • Report any bugs / missing functionality / unexpected results.
  • Please put [TestDay] into the subject line
  • Also make sure you specify the RC number you are using
  • Make sure to follow the guidelines on Reporting Bugs against Xen.

Reporting success

We would love it if you could report successes by e-mailing xen-devel@lists.xen.org, preferably including:

  • Hardware: Please at least include the processor manufacturer (Intel/AMD). Other helpful information might include specific processor models, amount of memory, number of cores, and so on
  • Software: If you're using a distro, the distro name and version would be the most helpful. Other helpful information might include the kernel that you're running, or other virtualization-related software you're using (e.g., libvirt, xen-tools, drbd, &c).
  • Guest operating systems: If running a Linux version, please specify whether you ran it in PV or HVM mode.
  • Functionality tested: High-level would include toolstacks, and major functionality (e.g., suspend/resume, migration, pass-through, stubdomains, &c)

The following template might be helpful: should you use Xen 4.6.0-RC5 for testing, please make sure you state that information! 

Subject: [TESTDAY] Test report
 
* Hardware:
 
* Software:

* Guest operating systems:

* Functionality tested:

* Comments:

For example: 

Subject: [TESTDAY] Test report
 
* Hardware: 
Dell 390's (Intel, dual-core) x15
HP (AMD, quad-core) x5
 
* Software: 
Ubuntu 10.10,11.10
Fedora 17

* Guest operating systems:
Windows 8
Ubuntu 12.10,11.10 (HVM)
Fedora 17 (PV)

* Functionality tested:
xl
suspend/resume
pygrub

* Comments:
Window 8 booting seemed a little slower than normal.

Other than that, great work!
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