[DRBD-user] DRBD breaks Windows inside Xen stub domains

Keith Coleman list.keith at scaltro.com
Fri Apr 24 19:20:23 CEST 2009

Note: "permalinks" may not be as permanent as we would like,
direct links of old sources may well be a few messages off.


I would like to use DRBD as a block device for Windows Server 2003
through a Xen stub domain.

The configuration I want is:

win -- xen stub domain - xen hvm -- drbd -- lvm

The above configuration doesnt work but several similar configs seem
to function properly:

win -- xen hvm -- drbd -- lvm
win -- xen hvm -- lvm
win -- xen stub domain -- xen hvm -- lvm
linux -- xen stub domain -- xen hvm -- drbd -- lvm

I am using the official 2.6.18.8-xen kernel with Xen 3.3.1 and DRBD
8.3.1 on Lenny. I have tried many variations of xen config files with
the same results.

Initially I thought there was an incompatibility between stub domains
and drbd but Linux guests work fine in this configuration. This makes
it seem like a windows problem. The block device presented to windows
by the stub domain should be the same from the guest point of view
regardless of what the stub domain is actually using as its block
device, right? I am accessing drbd as phy:/dev/drbd0. Is there any
reason that it would behave differently than when I use lvm as
phy:/dev/volgroup/logicalvolume ?

I haven't seen anything interesting in the log messages. Everything
seems to be working properly except that the windows guest is
crashing.

During a clean install Server 2003  crashes after files are copied
from the CD when NTFS is selected or after the partitioning when FAT
is selected. Sometimes the blue screen complains about disk.sys -
DRIVER_UNLOADED_WITHOUT_CANCELLING_PENDING_OPERATIONS with code
0x000000CE. Other times it's KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR - STOP:
0x0000007A mountmgr.sys

When I take a working Windows installation (win - xen hvm - drbd -
lvm) and put it inside a xen stub domain it will bsod during the boot
process. Usually the bsod here is PartMgr.sys -
DRIVER_UNLOADED_WITHOUT_CANCELLING_PENDING_OPERATIONS - STOP:
0x000000CE.

Has anyone managed to get this setup working?



Keith Coleman



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