No Content, No Fuss: OpenBSD/Xen boots multi-user

OpenBSD/Xen boots multi-user

anil@recoil.org (Anil Madhavapeddy) — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 18:08:00 +0100

I've been mentoring a few Xen projects as part of the Google Summer of Code program. One of the most fun is the OpenBSD/Xen porting effort which Christoph Egger has been hacking on. As of a few days ago, if you clone the Mercurial repository for the project, openbsd-xen-sys.hg, and build the kernel with with the i386 bsd.rd, you get the thrill of the following boot log:

[avsm@kremlin ~]$ sudo xm create -c openbsd
Using config file "/etc/xen/openbsd".
Started domain OpenBSD
[ using 187532 bytes of bsd ELF symbol table ]
Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
        The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 1995-2006 OpenBSD. All rights reserved.  http://www.OpenBSD.org

OpenBSD 4.0-beta (RAMDISK_XENU) #0: Mon Aug 21 14:59:09 BST 2006
    root@mortar.cl.cam.ac.uk:/usr/src/sys/arch/xen/compile/ RAMDISK_XENU
cpu0: Genuine Intel(R) CPU 3.00GHz ("GenuineIntel" 686-class) 3 GHz
cpu0: FPU,V86,DE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,MCA,CMOV,
    PAT,PSE36,CFLUSH,ACPI,MMX,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,SBF,PNI,
    EST,CNXT-ID
cpu0: EST: unknown system bus clock
real mem  = 62554112 (61088K)
avail mem = 55603200 (54300K)
using 789 buffers containing 3231744 bytes (3156K) of memory
mainbus0 (root)
cpu0 at mainbus0
hypervisor0 at mainbus0
debug virtual interrupt using event channel 3
xenbus0 at hypervisor0: Xen Virtual Bus Interface
xencons0 at hypervisor0: Xen Virtual Console Driver
xencons0: console major 86, unit 0
xencons0: using event channel 2
npx0 at hypervisor0: using exception 16
Xen clock: using event channel 4
rd0: fixed, 3800 blocks
xenbus0: using event channel 1
xennet0 at xenbus0 id 0: Xen Virtual Network Interface
xennet0: MAC address 00:16:3e:05:83:11
xennet0: using event channel 5
root on rd0a
rootdev=0x1100 rrootdev=0x2f00 rawdev=0x2f02
erase ^?, werase ^W, kill ^U, intr ^C, status ^T
(I)nstall, (U)pgrade or (S)hell?

Christoph has done a superb job of porting the NetBSD/Xen code over to OpenBSD. There are still a few bugs to be worked out in the networking driver, the virtual block driver to finish up, and the rather more messy job of getting the user-land tools to run if we want an OpenBSD dom0. But this initial booting is fantastic to see!

A final nice teaser from the console shell:

# ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=8008<LOOPBACK,MULTICAST> mtu 33224
        groups: lo
pflog0: flags=0<> mtu 33224
pfsync0: flags=0<> mtu 1460
        groups: carp
enc0: flags=0<> mtu 1536
xennet0: flags=8822<BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        lladdr 00:16:3e:05:83:11
        media: Ethernet autoselect (autoselect)

"OpenBSD/Xen boots multi-user" by fallout

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 04:30:09 +0100

Xen is cool. where can i get me some?

"OpenBSD/Xen boots multi-user" by tony

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 17:40:24 +0000

I know this is very late after the original post, but are there any mirrors of the OpenBSD Xen code? The Mercurial repository here at ht.recoil.org never responds, and I'd really like to try out OpenBSD in domU. Is this work still ongoing, or did it die off?

Thanks!

"OpenBSD/Xen boots multi-user" by Felipe Alfaro Solana

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 20:15:23 +0000

I tried to run a self-compiled XenU-enabled OpenBSD but it panics during the installation stage due to filesystem problems.

Is there some place or mailing list where to report such problems?

"OpenBSD/Xen boots multi-user" by l0r3zz at gmail.com

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 13:35:20 +0000

Is there a mailing list for OpenBSD/Xen ?

"OpenBSD/Xen boots multi-user" by waldo

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 08:29:29 +0100

is there a procedure for reporting bugs?

"OpenBSD/Xen boots multi-user" by Stephan

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 08:14:34 +0100

First of all, thanks for your great work! When do you think a production ready OpenBSD-domU is hitting earth?

"OpenBSD/Xen boots multi-user" by Anil Madhavapeddy

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 08:41:20 +0100

As usual, yes...

"OpenBSD/Xen boots multi-user" by james

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 01:36:01 +0100

are any fixes made by this project that are not xen-specific being submitted back to the openbsd project?

"OpenBSD/Xen boots multi-user" by Anil Madhavapeddy

Sun, 10 Sep 2006 12:47:20 +0100

Xen 3.0 ; as far as I know, there are no active porting efforts for any operating systems for Xen 2.0

"OpenBSD/Xen boots multi-user" by waldo

Sun, 10 Sep 2006 02:45:04 +0100

is this a kernel for xen2 or xen3?