[Debian] Re: One more request

Fri Aug 31 10:37:01 EDT 2012

Privet Konstantin and Kir

Thanks for your input. It makes sense. However there is one issue that I do not
think you are aware of. The issue is that the openvz project do not have the
resources (as I understand from Kir) to support yet another kernel release.
Not in the timeframe of Debian freeze period at least. Due to this (among other
reasons) the Debian kernel maintainers decided to drop the openvz patched kernel
from Debian altogether.

Due to this we (Kir, me and some others) agreed on that the RHEL6 kernels should
also be used for Debian and that I would make a repository for that.
What I have done is to setup an APT repository to be used for Debian and
converted the RedHat RPM:s into .deb packages.

You can find the work result (so far) here:
http://download.openvz.org/debian and
http://download.openvz.org/kernel/debian

I'm willing to try out the XFS parts if needed. I have to as that is the filesystem
I use.

What worries me is that we currently have support for openvz in Debian and if
the redhat kernels do not support the same things as the Debian kernels that we
have for current stable release, some people might be a bit upset when switching
to the redhat kernel.

I also have to verify that we can actually do as we thought would be suitable.
That is to run RHEL6 openvz kernels on Debian. Due to this xfs problem I have not
been able to do that.

I hope this helps to understand the situation.

Thanks in advance,

// Ola

On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 04:53:28PM +0400, Konstantin Khorenko wrote:
> Hi Ola,
> 
> i believe Debian people test xfs support in their 32bit kernels and thus they can release 32 bit kernels with xfs support.
> Talking about Red Hat: there are xfs related changes in RHEL's kernel, but xfs support is not included into 32bit kernels, thus Red Hat people do not test if xfs works fine on 32 bit systems.
> OpenVZ kernels (those we are talking about) are based on Red Hat kernels, thus if we enable xfs support in 32 bit arch, we will officially release a completely untested functionality what we definitely do not want to do.
> 
> You still might want to compile the kernel module yourself, if you have problems with the procedure please let us know, we can help with it,
> but it's definitely not recommended for production.
> 
> Hope that helps.
> 
> --
> Best regards,
> 
> Konstantin Khorenko,
> || Parallels
> 
> On 08/29/2012 08:37 PM, Ola Lundqvist wrote:
> >Hi
> >
> >The problem is that i do not have an 64 bit computer. And I guess that is quite common. Especially since i386 is the main debian distribution.
> >
> >I'm asking to have xfs buult as module. Not statically built in. All debian kernels have xfs as module.
> >
> >/ Ola
> >
> >Sent from my phone
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Konstantin Khorenko <khorenko at parallels.com>
> >To: Kirill Kolyshkin <kir at parallels.com>
> >Cc: "ola at inguza.com" <ola at inguza.com>, "debian at openvz.org" <debian at openvz.org>
> >Sent: Wed, 29 Aug 2012 14:08
> >Subject: Re: One more request
> >
> >Kirill,
> >
> >i've checked - xfs module presents in 64bit kernels (both Red Hat's and ours),
> >xfs support is disabled in 32bit kernels though.
> >
> >So the simplest (and the most proper) solution here is just to use 64bit OS (and thus - kernel).
> >
> >Web search gave me the following link:
> >http://www.mail-archive.com/scientific-linux-users@listserv.fnal.gov/msg08736.html
> >
> >---
> >On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 7:28 AM, Morten P.D. Stevens
> ><mstev... at imt-systems.com <mailto:mstev... at imt-systems.com>> wrote:
> >
> > > As mentioned, XFS is not supported on 32 bit systems.
> > >
> > > So you can check that:
> > > # cat /boot/config-$(uname -r) | grep XFS
> > > (no xfs support on 32 bit)
> > >
> > > Therefore, I would recommend you to use SL6 x86_64.
> > >
> > > Otherwise build your own kernel with xfs support. (not recommended)
> >
> >Yes, use xfs on 32-bit systems with caution because xfs has problems
> >with 4K stack size (x86_64 uses 8k stacks). This is one main reason
> >why upstream does not support it.
> >
> >Another note is that, if you determined to go for xfs on 32-bit, you
> >can just build the xfs module instead of the whole kernel.
> >
> >Akemi
> >---
> >
> >So i believe it's not a good idea to enable xfs by default in 32bit kernels, people might think that it's ok using it, while as far as i understand there are known issues in this configuration.
> >
> >If you still want to use xfs under 32bit kernel, please try building the corresponding kernel module.
> >
> >http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/BuildingKernelModules
> >
> >Hope that helps.
> >
> >--
> >Best regards,
> >
> >Konstantin Khorenko,
> >|| Parallels
> >
> >
> >On 08/22/2012 01 <tel:201201>:05 AM, Kirill Kolyshkin wrote:
> > > Kostya,
> > >
> > > Can we enable xfs?
> > >
> > > Ola Lundqvist <ola at inguza.com <mailto:ola at inguza.com>> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Hi again Kir
> > >
> > > Thanks a lot for helping me out with the root problem I had. It is
> > > much appriciated.
> > >
> > > However I stumbled on another problem when testing out the RHEL6
> > > kernels on Debian. It looks like xfs filesystem is not supported.
> > >
> > > I filed http://bugzilla.openvz.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2341. Could you
> > > get someone to look into this to see if xfs can be enabled?
> > > I would like to be able to test out this kernel on Debian and I do not
> > > have any system without xfs filesystem... I'm sure quite a lot of people
> > > running Debian actually use xfs...
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance,
> > >
> > > // Ola
> > >
> > > --
> > >   --- Inguza Technology AB --- MSc in Information Technology ----
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> > >   ---------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> 

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