Xen 4.5 RC1 test instructions

What needs to be tested

General things:

• Making sure that Xen 4.5 compiles and installs properly on different software configurations; particularly on distros
• Making sure that Xen 4.5, along with appropriately up-to-date kernels, work on different hardware.

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

Installing

Getting RC1

• xen: with a recent enough git (>= 1.7.8.2) just pull from the proper tag (4.5.0-rc1) from the main repo directly:

git clone -b 4.5.0-rc1 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 4.5.0-rc1 not found in upstream origin, using HEAD instead), do the following:

git clone git://xenbits.xen.org/xen.git ; cd xen ; git checkout 4.5.0-rc1

• tarball: here it is a 4.5.0 RC1 tarball (and its signature)
• RPM Packages: there is a temporary build of 4.5.0-RC1 RPMs, for Fedora 21 (thanks to Michael Young for doing this): XYZ

Building

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

Test instructions

General

• Remove any old versions of Xen toolstack and userspace binaries (including qemu).
• Download and install the most recent Xen 4.5 RC, as described above. Make sure to check the README for changes in required development libraries and procedures. Some particular things to note:
  • Since Xen 4.4 the default installation path has changed from /usr to /usr/local. Take extra care when removing any old versions to allow for this.

Once you have Xen 4.5 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.

In particular if you were using the (deprecated) xm/XEND toolstack it is now REMOVED- hence please do try your normal use cases with the XL toolstack. The XL page has some information on the differences between XEND and XL.

Specific RC1 things

None at this time.

Specific ARM Test Instructions

Follow Xen_ARMv7_with_Virtualization_Extensions http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_ARMv7_with_Virtualization_Extensions

Specific x86 Test Instructions

Linux PVH

Xen 4.4 added support to run certain PV guests in PVH mode. This requires the operating system to support a subset of PV ABI, as such only two exist:

• Linux 3.18-rc1 and later (The previous versions of Linux had an ABI violation so they do not work),
• FreeBSD out of Roger's branch (based on stable/10 snapshot).

In Xen 4.5 we also added the support to run those guests as the initial domain (dom0). Unfortunately the work to make this work on AMD did not make, so it only works on Intel. To use this an extra parameter on Xen command line is required: dom0pvh=1.

Fedora

If you are using Fedora, you can install the RPMs mentioned above and use this test-case:

• [[1]]

EFI

Xen 4.3 and later can be built as EFI binaries. Fedora 20 and later, if installed as EFI will provide those in /boot/EFI/Fedora directory as "xen-x.y.z.efi".

Or you can built it by hand using GCC crosstool chain (hard) (TODO LINKL)

• Explain how to put xen.efi and xen.cfg in /EFI/boot/ directory
• Explain how to use grub2 chainloader [EFI -> GRUB2 -> [pass EFI data] -> Xen.efi [loads vmlinuz and initramfs]
• Explain multiboot2 (EFI -> GRUB2 -> [passes data in multibootv2+EFI] -> Xen.gz -> Linux & initramfs]

[[2]]

libvirt

[[3]]

FreeBSD PVH

Instruction about how to setup a FreeBSD PVH DomU support can be found at FreeBSD PVH wiki page. Instruction about how to setup a FreeBSD PVH Dom0 can be found at FreeBSD dom0 wiki page.

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 4.5.0-RC1 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!