Archived/Xen 4.3 RC1 test instructions

What needs to be tested

To Do: Add a list of what needs to be tested at the Xen Document Day

Getting RC1

• mercurial: Pull from the main repo, and update to tag 4.2.0-rc2:

hg clone http://xenbits.xen.org/xen-unstable.hg
hg update -C 4.2.0-rc2

• tarball: Xen 4.0.2 RC2 Tarball (and signature)
• rpms: Fedora users can grab xen-4.2.0-rc2 rpms and src.rpm from http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=4386920 . Thanks to Michael Young for these rpms!
• git: Get source from git mirror:

 git clone -b 4.2.0-rc2 git://xenbits.xen.org/xen.git

Build requirements

• Fedora 16/17: You need these packages installed to build Xen 4.3 from source. Also applies to RHEL6/CentOS6, but there you probably first need to enable EPEL repo to be able to find some of the rpms:

yum groupinstall "Development Libraries"
yum groupinstall "Development Tools"
yum install transfig wget tar less texi2html libaio-devel dev86 glibc-devel e2fsprogs-devel gitk mkinitrd iasl xz-devel bzip2-devel
yum install pciutils-libs pciutils-devel SDL-devel libX11-devel gtk2-devel bridge-utils PyXML qemu-common qemu-img mercurial texinfo
yum install libidn-devel yajl yajl-devel ocaml ocaml-findlib ocaml-findlib-devel python-devel uuid-devel libuuid-devel openssl-devel
yum install glibc-devel.i686

• Debian/Ubuntu: This list might be incomplete, please complete/fix/test the package list!:

apt-get install build-essential bcc bin86 gawk bridge-utils iproute libcurl3 libcurl4-openssl-dev bzip2 module-init-tools transfig tgif 
apt-get install texinfo texlive-latex-base texlive-latex-recommended texlive-fonts-extra texlive-fonts-recommended pciutils-dev mercurial
apt-get install make gcc libc6-dev zlib1g-dev python python-dev python-twisted libncurses5-dev patch libvncserver-dev libsdl-dev libjpeg62-dev
apt-get install iasl libbz2-dev e2fslibs-dev git-core uuid-dev ocaml ocaml-findlib libx11-dev bison flex xz-utils libyajl-dev
apt-get install gettext

If you have a 64 bit Debian/Ubuntu system, you also need to install:

apt-get install gcc-multilib libc6-dev-i386

• NetBSD: You will need to following packages from pkgsrc to build Xen 4.2 from source:

devel/mercurial
devel/scmgit
devel/gmake
lang/python27
devel/py-curses
devel/dev86
devel/glib2
devel/yajl

Test instructions

• Remove any old versions of Xen toolstack binaries (including qemu).
• Download and install the most recent Xen 4.2 RC. Make sure to check the README for changes in required development libraries and procedures. Some particular things to note:
  • Xen 4.2 now uses autoconf, so after downloading, you will need to run ./configure before running make
    • The default is now to install libraries in /usr/lib by default. Use --libdir=/usr/lib64 if your system uses those paths.
  • To build everything you can use "./configure ; make world". After successful compilation the built binaries are under dist/install/ directory, and they can be installed with "make install" command.
  • You can also use more specific build commands: "./configure ; make xen ; make tools ; make stubdom". To install use "make install-xen ; make install-tools ; make install-stubdom".
  • Xen 4.2 now provides a make deb target as a convenience to those building from source on Debian systems. The resulting .deb doesn't do any set-up or check any dependencies; it is simply a convenient way to keep track of installed files and allow them to be removed or upgraded easily.

• Read the xl wiki page to understand what xl is, and what differences are expected between xm and xl.
  • In particular, xend typically did network setup (i.e., bridging, &c), while xl does not. So you will need to set up your networking through the standard distro tools.
  • For less common commands, check the xl man page to make sure names or argument conventions haven't changed.

• Try to use xl for things that you used to use xm for.

Reporting Bugs (& Issues)

• 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, in particular if you are using 4.2.0-rc3-pre instead of RC2
• 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, preferrably including:

• Hardware: Please at least include the processor manufaturer (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 4.2.0-RC3-PRE 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!