FreeBSD Hangs on Boot

[Falk Nisius]

Binary package hint: qemu-kvm

On 11.04 Natty, with the Kernel 2.6.38.8-42-server, with kvm 0.14 on an intel i970 hangs FreeBSD on Boot, like described in

http://<email address hidden>/msg50722.html

and following mails. The Solution in the kvm.git seams to be working.
The issue is not on 10.10 with the 2.6.35-28 at the same machine.
is it possible to update the package with a fixed Version from git ?

WORKAROUND: Setting:
beastie_disable="YES"

in /boot/loader.conf solves the problem of booting FreeBSD. Pressing enter (quickly) to bypass the initial beastie menu, during installation solved the boot under installation.

[Serge Hallyn (serge-hallyn)]

Thanks for taking the time to submit this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better.

I'm marking this confirmed based on the mailing list conversations. However as the fix appears to be in the kernel, I'm marking the qemu-kvm bug invalid.

If you can verify that one single commit (say 09493165180e69a1dcdb44e049015e31c6de57e2) in the kvm.git tree fixed the bug, then we could try and cherrypick that into our kernel trees. However, we definately can't just take the kvm.git tree as our kernel tree.

It looks likely that the email thread you pointed to will result in the correct fixed being pushed to Linus' tree pretty quickly, at which point it will be pulled into our oneiric tree. At that point we can also cherrypick the fix into the natty tree.

[Bjoern Connolly (pobox)]

Is this the same bug as #746114?

[Falk Nisius (falknisius)]

Yes it looks like the same.

There is a comment on FreeBSD ACPI Mailing List for AMD CPUs, where the CPU Turbo Mode freeze native BSD Systems. Perhaps that correspondends with this bug, because it would first recognized on AMD Systems.

If you prevent the boot menu of FreeBSD the BSD guests runs without any problems, or you are fast enough to hit the option or enter before the issue comes, than also BSD runs fine as KVM guest.

[Serge Hallyn (serge-hallyn)]

In that case, a kernel with kvm.git commits e5d135f80b98b0 and 2607b0533353c might fix it

[Falk Nisius (falknisius)]

that was clear, but when comes the patch to the Ubuntu kernel ? With the next 2.6.38.x with x > 8 ?
Im able to compile a kernel with the patch and use it on a productive system, but I didn't wish to do that without any testing environment to find other for me unknown dependencies

[Bjoern Connolly (pobox)]

I can confirm that setting:
beastie_disable="YES" in /boot/loader.conf solves the problem of booting FreeBSD.

Pressing enter (quickly) to bypass the initial beastie menu, during installation solved the boot under installation.

[Falk Nisius (falknisius)]

I can also confirm this solution and use it, in the moment. For me is it solved

[Tom Vijlbrief (tvijlbrief)]

Replacing the SeaBios implementation of the delay in src/clock.c with
the method used in the Bochs BIOS is also a workaround for FreeBSD:

//=========================
// Wait for CX:DX microseconds
void
handle_1586(struct bregs *regs)
{
    // Use the rtc to wait for the specified time.
    u32 count = (regs->cx << 16) | regs->dx;
#if 0
    u8 statusflag = 0;
    int ret = set_usertimer(count, GET_SEG(SS), (u32)&statusflag);
    if (ret) {
        set_code_invalid(regs, RET_ECLOCKINUSE);
        return;
    }
    while (!statusflag)
        wait_irq();
#else
    // Use bochs code: (<email address hidden>)
    count/= 15;
    while (count-- > 0) {
      u8 orig = inb(PORT_PS2_CTRLB) & 0x10;
      while (orig == (inb(PORT_PS2_CTRLB) & 0x10))
        ;
    }
#endif
    set_success(regs);
}

//=======================

You can replace /usr/share/seabios/bios.bin with
the bios downloaded from:

http://www.v7f.eu/public/bios.bin

[Joseph Salisbury (jsalisbury)]

This bug was filed against a series that is no longer supported and so is being marked as Won't Fix. If this issue still exists in a supported series, please file a new bug.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.