[Xen-devel] Detecting deadlocks with hypervisor..

["Thileepan Subramaniam" <thileepan_@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

I am trying to see if the hypervisor can be used to detect deadlocks in the 
guest VMs. My goal is to detect if a guest OS is deadlocked, and if it is, 
then create a clone of the deadlocked OS without the locking condition, and 
letting the clone run. While the clone runs I am hoping to generate some 
hints that could tell me what caused the deadlock.
I simulated a deadlock/hang situation in a guest OS (by loading a badly 
written module to the kernel) and when the guestOS kernel was hanging, I ran 
"xm save" from Dom-0. But this command waits forever.
I tried to follow the flow of the .py files (XendCheckpoint.py etc.). These 
seem to be called when I run 'xm save'. But beyond a point I am not sure 
what the python scripts do. I also see some libxc files such as 
xc_linux_save.c, but I am not sure who is using it (Dom-0 or Xen or the 
XenU). Can someone help me by explaining me what happens behind the scene 
when "xm save" is called ? Is there any good documentation explaining which 
actions are done by which layers (eg: python layer, C layer etc).
Also, does it seem viable to clone a copy of a deadlocked guest OS in the 
first place?
thanks!
- ts

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