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Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:39:55 -0700
From: Andrew Sharp <andy.sharp@lsi.com>
To: "Nichols, Chuck" <Chuck.Nichols@lsi.com>
Subject: Re: Port of Linux Coupling Driver to Debian Linux and Kernel 2.6.31
Message-ID: <20091013133955.2b1e7e48@ripper.onstor.net>
In-Reply-To: <4565AEA676113A449269C2F3A549520F03FA6E16@cosmail03.lsi.com>
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On Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:29:05 -0600 "Nichols, Chuck"
<Chuck.Nichols@lsi.com> wrote:

> Hi, Andy,
> 
> Can you answer the questions below, with respect to the Linux
> distro/kernel version you guys are planning on using?
> 
> Thanks,
> Chuck
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Jolad, Amarnath
> Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 12:06 AM
> To: Nichols, Chuck; Deitz, Bill; Rolandelli, Craig; DeKoning, Rod;
> Henry, Jason; Padmanabhan, Seetharaman Subject: RE: Port of Linux
> Coupling Driver to Debian Linux and Kernel 2.6.31
> 
> Chuck,
>      Couple of questions on Linux VM.
> 
> 1.       Is Debian 5.0 the correct version? (+ kernel.org's 2.6.31)

yup.  5.1 or 6.0 or whatever isn't scheduled for another year+

> 2.       Is it 32 bit or 64-bit? (Our attempt is to write a portable
> code, but need to know this to get started with setting up our
> initial test env).

64

I don't recall ever hearing of something called 32-bit.  What is that?

> -AJ
> 
> From: Nichols, Chuck
> Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 12:42 AM
> To: Deitz, Bill; Rolandelli, Craig; DeKoning, Rod; Henry, Jason;
> Padmanabhan, Seetharaman Cc: Jolad, Amarnath
> Subject: RE: Port of Linux Coupling Driver to Debian Linux and Kernel
> 2.6.31
> 
> Hi, Bill,
> 
> I can see two reasons why we might have to run the coupling driver in
> Dom0:
> 
> 1.)  We don't have sufficient flash capacity to support all VM images
> for a given solution.  For first out, as you know, we're planning on
> trying to boot everything from flash, so this case should not be a
> factor.
> 
> 2.)  If for serviceability or support reasons, Dom0 needs to write
> some type of logs or core files to persistent storage supplied by the
> RAID VM.  I don't recall that we have a specific case such as that
> defined right now, but I could see it as a possibility.  I need to
> re-review Arindam's Serviceability Abstracts to be sure.
> 
> So, for now, we should definitely prioritize work on Debian 2.6.31
> over 2.6.27.
> 
> -Chuck
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Deitz, Bill
> Sent: Monday, October 12, 2009 7:55 AM
> To: Rolandelli, Craig; DeKoning, Rod; Nichols, Chuck; Henry, Jason;
> Padmanabhan, Seetharaman Cc: Jolad, Amarnath
> Subject: RE: Port of Linux Coupling Driver to Debian Linux and Kernel
> 2.6.31 We don't need to port to 2.6.27, as that is the kernel used in
> Dom0 with the Citrix CentOS distribution. We don't need coupling
> drivers running in Dom0. We would only be porting the coupling
> drivers to Debian 2.6.31 kernel which would be running in DomU FBA
> Application.
> 
> Chuck, correct me if I've gone wrong here.
> 
> From: Rolandelli, Craig
> Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 3:45 PM
> To: DeKoning, Rod; Deitz, Bill; Nichols, Chuck; Henry, Jason;
> Padmanabhan, Seetharaman Subject: RE: Port of Linux Coupling Driver
> to Debian Linux and Kernel 2.6.31
> 
> Sorry, I'm not either :).
> 
> I meant to say, it would not be wasted work if they ported to 2.6.31
> and 2.6.27.
> 
> Craig
> 
> 
> From: DeKoning, Rod
> Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 2:43 PM
> To: Rolandelli, Craig; Deitz, Bill; Nichols, Chuck; Henry, Jason;
> Padmanabhan, Seetharaman Subject: RE: Port of Linux Coupling Driver
> to Debian Linux and Kernel 2.6.31
> 
> Sorry - I am not following your last comment.  Why would it not be
> wasted work?
> 
> Rod
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Rolandelli, Craig
> Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 4:41 PM
> To: DeKoning, Rod; Deitz, Bill; Nichols, Chuck; Henry, Jason;
> Padmanabhan, Seetharaman Subject: RE: Port of Linux Coupling Driver
> to Debian Linux and Kernel 2.6.31 OK, but Bill Deitz and his team, if
> they worked on porting to these two kernel versions, it wouldn't be
> wasted work.
> 
> Craig
> 
> 
> From: DeKoning, Rod
> Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 2:40 PM
> To: Rolandelli, Craig; Deitz, Bill; Nichols, Chuck; Henry, Jason;
> Padmanabhan, Seetharaman Subject: RE: Port of Linux Coupling Driver
> to Debian Linux and Kernel 2.6.31
> 
> I think this is where we are going.
> 
> Ann stopped by earlier today to ask if there was a way to get to one
> distribution - with the assumption is better to have one rather than
> two.
> 
> 
> Rod
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Rolandelli, Craig
> Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 4:32 PM
> To: Deitz, Bill; Nichols, Chuck; DeKoning, Rod; Henry, Jason;
> Padmanabhan, Seetharaman Subject: RE: Port of Linux Coupling Driver
> to Debian Linux and Kernel 2.6.31 I thought we were agreed on the
> following:
> 
> Guest VM's - Debian with a 2.6.31 kernel
> Dom0 - CENTOS with an OpenSUSE 2.6.27 kernel
> 
> Craig
> 
> 
> From: Deitz, Bill
> Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:54 PM
> To: Nichols, Chuck; DeKoning, Rod; Rolandelli, Craig; Henry, Jason;
> Padmanabhan, Seetharaman Subject: RE: Port of Linux Coupling Driver
> to Debian Linux and Kernel 2.6.31
> 
> OK, that makes sense to me. Let's just say for now that the "ball's
> on your side of the court". Let us know when a final decision has
> been arrived at.
> 
> From: Nichols, Chuck
> Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 1:47 PM
> To: Deitz, Bill; DeKoning, Rod; Rolandelli, Craig; Henry, Jason;
> Padmanabhan, Seetharaman Subject: RE: Port of Linux Coupling Driver
> to Debian Linux and Kernel 2.6.31
> 
> By "Linux development teams" I meant the StoreAge and FBA teams.
> You're right about the India team in that I don't think they've done
> much with Debian.
> 
> That being said... Oh, wait, you already said that.  :)
> 
> I say we push forward with Debian 2.6.31, but based upon Rod's
> feedback and the question from Ann, below, I wanted to make sure
> we're not jumping the gun as we don't want to be jerking the India
> team around.
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Deitz, Bill
> Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 2:38 PM
> To: Nichols, Chuck; DeKoning, Rod; Rolandelli, Craig; Henry, Jason;
> Padmanabhan, Seetharaman Subject: RE: Port of Linux Coupling Driver
> to Debian Linux and Kernel 2.6.31 I don't think the India team has
> any synergy with Debian 2.6.31 yet. They have been dabbling with
> RedHad and CentOS and OpenSource 3.4, but I don't believe they have
> much experience/history with Debian 2.6.31. As Chuck would say "That
> being said"; what is our decision going forward?
> 
> From: Nichols, Chuck
> Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 1:00 PM
> To: DeKoning, Rod; Deitz, Bill; Rolandelli, Craig; Henry, Jason;
> Padmanabhan, Seetharaman Subject: RE: Port of Linux Coupling Driver
> to Debian Linux and Kernel 2.6.31
> 
> A clarification... an OpenSUSE 2.6.31-based distribution doesn't
> actually help us because:
> 
> 1.  Citrix Dom0 is currently a CENTOS distribution
> 2.  Citrix Dom0 kernel is currently an OpenSUSE 2.6.27
> 3.  Citrix gave little indication that they were willing to consider
> changing their Dom0 distro for us.  Additionally, their roadmap does
> not have them moving off of 2.6.27 for Dom0 until late in 2010, and
> changing from the CENTOS distribution would be a major change to
> their tools and certification infrastructure.
> 
> Additionally, Citrix doesn't believe that moving components from a
> DomU to Dom0 would help much with performance.  I believe their
> perspective is, if you've done everything you can to optimize
> performance in the DomU  (PCI device assignment, CPU core affinity,
> etc.), then there's very little difference between executing as a
> DomU and executing as a Dom0.  It's only their opinion, of course,
> but we can work with them to model, benchmark, etc.
> 
> So, IMO, if we're not going to match the Dom0 distribution or kernel
> revision with either OpenSUSE or Debian, then we might as well
> continue to use the distributions/kernels with which our Linux
> development teams have some background and inertia, i.e. Debian
> 2.6.31.  The risk is the same as I've communicated below.
> 
> Rod, Jason, if you have any questions, or if you want to hold off on
> communicating this until we can talk, in person, that's fine.  This
> is where my thinking lies right now.
> 
> -Chuck
> 
> ________________________________
> From: DeKoning, Rod
> Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 8:23 AM
> To: DeKoning, Rod; Deitz, Bill; Nichols, Chuck; Rolandelli, Craig;
> Henry, Jason; Padmanabhan, Seetharaman Subject: RE: Port of Linux
> Coupling Driver to Debian Linux and Kernel 2.6.31 Okay - Ann just
> stopped by.  She is good with this EXCEPT - she would like to
> understand why we wouldn't go with a SUSE 2.6.31 variant for the
> Guest VMs.
> 
> I know that this would be some short term churn for the OnStor team,
> but is there any other reason that we would say NO to SUSE?
> 
> Thanks,
> Rod
> 
> BTW: Let's hold off on communicating with India for a little longer.
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: DeKoning, Rod
> Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 7:56 AM
> To: Deitz, Bill; Nichols, Chuck; Rolandelli, Craig; Henry, Jason;
> Padmanabhan, Seetharaman Subject: RE: Port of Linux Coupling Driver
> to Debian Linux and Kernel 2.6.31 Chuck has correctly identified the
> better of the options and the associated risks.  I agree that this is
> the direction we should go, so let's commit and get to the next set
> of issues.
> 
> 
> Rod
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Deitz, Bill
> Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 7:52 AM
> To: Nichols, Chuck; Rolandelli, Craig; Henry, Jason; Padmanabhan,
> Seetharaman; DeKoning, Rod Subject: Port of Linux Coupling Driver to
> Debian Linux and Kernel 2.6.31 This sounds definitive. This is
> probably the correct route to go. In addition, it is my understanding
> that Server Engine's latest driver for the BladeEngine2 device is
> being released with 2.6.31. I'll let Paddu forward on this decision
> to the India team
> 
> From: Nichols, Chuck
> Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 4:03 PM
> To: Rolandelli, Craig; Henry, Jason; Deitz, Bill; Padmanabhan,
> Seetharaman; DeKoning, Rod Subject: RE: Status for tomorrow's meeting
> 
> My view is that we should go ahead and start working with Debian and
> kernel 2.6.31.
> 
> The risk is that we can't reconcile the Citrix Dom0/LSI DomU kernel
> discrepancies we have to move back to 2.6.27 later.  The FBA team is
> in the process of porting their initial work to Debian 2.6.31, and,
> given the amount of work in front of them, I'm concerned that asking
> them to back up would be counter productive.
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Rolandelli, Craig
> Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 3:35 PM
> To: Henry, Jason; Deitz, Bill; Nichols, Chuck; Padmanabhan,
> Seetharaman Subject: RE: Status for tomorrow's meeting
> Can we wait until after Chuck talks to Andy today.  Then decide?
> 
> Craig
> 
> 
> From: Henry, Jason
> Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 1:34 PM
> To: Rolandelli, Craig; Deitz, Bill; Nichols, Chuck; Padmanabhan,
> Seetharaman Subject: RE: Status for tomorrow's meeting
> 
> I was just jabbering with Chuck. Waiting for a definitive decision
> seems like the wrong move.  I believe they should start porting to
> 2.6.31.  Unless anyone on this thread has info to suggest this is a
> bad idea, lets kick them off to port to 2.6.31.
> 
> Jason
> 
> Desk:   316.636.8417
> Mobile: 316.617.3697
> ________________________________
> From: Rolandelli, Craig
> Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 3:08 PM
> To: Henry, Jason; Deitz, Bill; Nichols, Chuck; Padmanabhan,
> Seetharaman Subject: RE: Status for tomorrow's meeting
> 
> What do you want them to port to?  2.6.27 or 2.6.31?  My
> understanding is that they have different interfaces to port too.
> 
> Craig
> 
> 
> From: Henry, Jason
> Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 1:00 PM
> To: Deitz, Bill; Nichols, Chuck; Padmanabhan, Seetharaman
> Cc: Rolandelli, Craig
> Subject: RE: Status for tomorrow's meeting
> 
> Can they not start any of their porting activities?  I understand we
> need the decision...
> 
> Jason
> 
> Desk:   316.636.8417
> Mobile: 316.617.3697
> ________________________________
> From: Deitz, Bill
> Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 2:58 PM
> To: Nichols, Chuck; Henry, Jason; Padmanabhan, Seetharaman
> Cc: Rolandelli, Craig
> Subject: RE: Status for tomorrow's meeting
> 
> The India team is "chomping at the bit" to get started with their
> porting activity. For now, it sounds like they will have to hold off
> a little while longer for a firm commitment to be made.
> 
> From: Nichols, Chuck
> Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 1:22 PM
> To: Deitz, Bill; Henry, Jason; Padmanabhan, Seetharaman
> Cc: Rolandelli, Craig
> Subject: RE: Status for tomorrow's meeting
> 
> I wouldn't say it's set in stone, as we seem to be convinced we
> should align our Linux VMs with the Dom0 Linux version from Citrix,
> and Citrix isn't using Debian.  That being said, we think Debian is a
> good choice.  As for kernel versions, we'll need to be at least at
> 2.6.27, and likely at 2.6.31 (and maybe both).  I have a discussion
> this afternoon with one of the FBA guys to try and wrap that question
> up.
> 
> -Chuck
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Deitz, Bill
> Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 8:01 AM
> To: Nichols, Chuck; Henry, Jason; Padmanabhan, Seetharaman
> Cc: Rolandelli, Craig
> Subject: RE: Status for tomorrow's meeting
> Chuck and Jason,
> 
> Is this decision about going with Debian for our Linux guestOS solid?
> If so, then we can turn the India team on to the porting of their
> coupling driver to the 2.6.31 kernel. From what AJ told me
> previously, there is some significant amount of work to upgrade the
> drivers to the latest kernel revision.
> 
> 1.     Linux Coupling
> driver
> Paddu a.     8/5: i.    Andrew Lau -   CD does not work with Debian
> Linux, it only works with Redhat.  When can we get a CD for Debian?
> I am trying to lockdown the final golden image for PP before the
> Proto comes in next week. ii.    AJ - Need for CD for Debian had been
> raised a while ago. But decided to put it on hold till someone tells
> me what kernel version to do it for? Initial request was for Debian
> 5.0 but kernel 2.6.22, but debian 5.0 came with Kernel-2.6.26+.
> 
> From: Nichols, Chuck
> Sent: Wednesday, October 07, 2009 4:00 PM
> To: Deitz, Bill; Henry, Jason; Padmanabhan, Seetharaman
> Cc: Rolandelli, Craig
> Subject: RE: Status for tomorrow's meeting
> 
> I'm sorry for the delay in responding to this thread... I was OOO for
> most of the mid-day.
> 
> The distribution the NAS team is currently using is Debian, and it
> seems to fit the bill for most of the work we would like to do.  The
> one sticking point is that we'd also like to align the Dom0
> distribution with the distribution that we're using for our VMs.
> This entails discussing with Citrix the possibility of them supplying
> us with a different Dom0 distribution (or the NAS team switching to
> the Citrix OpenSUSE-based distribution).
> 
> As far as kernel revisions go, the Coupling Driver will need to be
> developed for kernel 2.6.31 and later, as we see fit to update kernel
> revisions.
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Deitz, Bill
> Sent: Wednesday, October 07, 2009 4:07 PM
> To: Henry, Jason; Padmanabhan, Seetharaman
> Cc: Rolandelli, Craig; Nichols, Chuck
> Subject: RE: Status for tomorrow's meeting
> The porting of the Coupling Driver to the correct version of Linux is
> being held up awaiting a decision from Chuck (OnStor). This isn't
> really Citrix's problem however. There is one issue which puts us
> into a bind as far as direct assigning devices to our VxWorks
> guestOS. In the Citrix 3.3.1 version we are using there is a limit to
> the number of devices which can be passed thru. Here is the writeup
> below. This is issue #32 in our spreadsheet.
> 
> ISSUE
> Weber - Can't pass-thru  any more than 11 devices to the DPL/VxWorks
> VM.  If I pass 12, sometimes only the first 11 show up and sometimes
> none of them show up.  If I pass more than 12, none of the pass-thru
> devices show up in the VM (and sometimes it crashes Xen completely
> and the controller reboots).  By my current count, we need to be able
> to pass 19 devices to our DPL VM: 1. DMA Engines (8) 2. SAS Device
> (1) 3. Baseboard QE8 (4) 4. HIC QE8 (4) - I'm assuming the IB and
> iSCSI HICs do not have >4 PCI devices 5. FPGA (2) - Passing through
> both FPGA functions until we get actual implementation figured out
> 
> STATUS
> 9/17: Weber - Is there any way we can modify our current Xen install
> to allow all the required devices? 9/17: AJ - In Citrix Xen-3.3.1,
> the string length for parsing direct assigned pci devices is 120
> bytes. Each entry takes 12 bytes (0000:01:01.1/Domainid:B:D.F) + a
> delimiter ("-"). So, this can take up to 9 devices and should have
> thrown error for 10th itself. In 3.4, this length is 512bytes and
> hence can take up to 38 devices. The new limit in 3.4 is 28 direct
> assigned pci devices.  See
> (http://www.vergenet.net/~horms/pleb_blossom/permalink/2009/2009-05-19T12_03_50.shtml).
> 
> From: Henry, Jason
> Sent: Wednesday, October 07, 2009 2:42 PM
> To: Deitz, Bill; Padmanabhan, Seetharaman
> Cc: Rolandelli, Craig; Nichols, Chuck
> Subject: RE: Status for tomorrow's meeting
> 
> Citrix is willing to help us get a version of 3.4.1 up and running
> now...per Peter Benoit.  If you hear differently or are not getting
> help, please contact Craig.
> 
> Not having the SOW closed is really hurting us here.  It is
> reasonable that they push for this and not start some work until it
> is closed.  So, I do not expect Citrix to start plowing through our
> big list of issues until we have the SOW closed.  The only remaining
> issue in this round of the SOW review is for us to choose the Linux
> version we want to support.  Chuck is driving this to closure with
> Craig's help.
> 
> Bill, I know we/you have a growing list of issue for Citrix.  At this
> point are any of our developers or test systems stuck waiting on
> Citrix help?
> 
> Jason
> 
> Desk:   316.636.8417
> Mobile: 316.617.3697
> ________________________________
> From: Deitz, Bill
> Sent: Wednesday, October 07, 2009 2:05 PM
> To: Henry, Jason; Padmanabhan, Seetharaman
> Subject: Status for tomorrow's meeting
> 
> Anything new for tomorrow's meeting? Jason was escalating getting the
> next Citrix code drop, and Paddu was going to coerce Citrix last week.
> 
> 1.     Citrix
> Hypervisor
> Jason Henry/Paddu a.     10/1: i.    Paddu - Having meeting with SE
> and Citrix today. Paddu will attempt to get the ball rolling on next
> code drop. ii.    Deitz - Will not receive next Citrix code drop
> until SOW signed and completed by both sides. Jason Henry is
> escalating the issue.
> 
> 
> William G. Deitz
> Distinguished Engineer
> Engenio Storage Group
> LSI Corporation
> 5400 Airport Blvd. Suite 100
> Boulder, CO 80301
> TEL 303-381-4253
> FAX 303-413-0464
> bill.deitz@lsi.com<mailto:bill.deitz@lsi.com>
