[Xen-users] Cannot create vbd / cannot create vif

[Eric Windisch <lists@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Last week, I mentioned an error I was getting, as described below.  I've 
seen several mailing list posts  describing a similar problem as far 
back as December, 2005.  This seems to be a problem plaguing all Xen 3 
releases (to date).
> 3. After booting and then destroying approximately 25 domains, the 
> system will require a reboot before I can add further domains.  The 
> error I receive is (approximately) '(vif) could not be connected'.  If 
> I comment the 'vif=' line in the domain's configuration, I then 
> receive '(vbd) could not be connected'.  Both messages were also 
> followed by "Hotplug scripts not working."  I suspect if I restart 
> xenstored, this may be fixed, but I haven't yet had a chance to test 
> that.
Upon further review, I think my problem is happening once two domains 
are started that have the same mac address assigned to their vif 
devices.  When a second domain comes online with the same MAC address as 
an existing domain, Xen will not be able to create the vif, and exits -- 
but it does NOT properly clean up.  After that point, Xen will refuse to 
create even properly-configured domains.  No domains may be created from 
that point forward, until a reboot.  I haven't yet found a workaround.
Once the system has encountered this problem, I see several variables 
within xenstore-ls associated with each of the domains which failed to 
'create'.  I manually removed the associated variable trees with 
xenstore-rm, but I still wasn't able to create a new domain, again with 
the message "(vdb) could not be connected".
Please let me know if you need further information to reproduce the 
error.. ;-)
Below is an excerpt from xenstore-ls showing information about a domain 
(rjackson) which was never created.. (I attempted to start it a few 
times, as you can see)
Thank you.

--
Eric Windisch


> local = ""
>  domain = ""
>   0 = ""
>    cpu = ""
>     0 = ""
>      availability = "online"
>     1 = ""
>      availability = "online"
>    memory = ""
>     target = "1896448"
>    name = "Domain-0"
>    console = ""
>     limit = "1048576"
>    vm = "/vm/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
>    domid = "0"
>    backend = ""
>     vbd = ""
>      23 = ""
>       2049 = ""
>        domain = "rjackson"
>        frontend = "/local/domain/23/device/vbd/2049"
>        dev = "sda1"
>        state = "5"
>        params = "mapper/XenDomains-rjackson"
>        mode = "w"
>        frontend-id = "23"
>        type = "phy"
>       2050 = ""
>        domain = "rjackson"
>        frontend = "/local/domain/23/device/vbd/2050"
>        dev = "sda2"
>        state = "1"
>        params = "mapper/Swap-rjackson"
>        mode = "w"
>        frontend-id = "23"
>        type = "phy"
>      24 = ""
>       2049 = ""
>        domain = "rjackson"
>        frontend = "/local/domain/24/device/vbd/2049"
>        dev = "sda1"
>        state = "5"
>        params = "mapper/XenDomains-rjackson"
>        mode = "w"
>        frontend-id = "24"
>        type = "phy"
>       2050 = ""
>        domain = "rjackson"
>        frontend = "/local/domain/24/device/vbd/2050"
>        dev = "sda2"
>        state = "1"
>        params = "mapper/Swap-rjackson"
>        mode = "w"
>        frontend-id = "24"
>        type = "phy"
>      25 = ""
>       2049 = ""
>        domain = "rjackson"
>        frontend = "/local/domain/25/device/vbd/2049"
>        dev = "sda1"
>        state = "5"
>        params = "mapper/XenDomains-rjackson"
>        mode = "w"
>        frontend-id = "25"
>        type = "phy"
>       2050 = ""
>        domain = "rjackson"
>        frontend = "/local/domain/25/device/vbd/2050"
>        dev = "sda2"
>        state = "1"
>        params = "mapper/Swap-rjackson"
>        mode = "w"
>        frontend-id = "25"
>        type = "phy"
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