From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 26 00:12:20 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0C79C16A405 for ; Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:12:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lstewart@freebsd.org) Received: from outbound.icp-qv1-irony-out4.iinet.net.au (outbound.icp-qv1-irony-out4.iinet.net.au [203.59.1.150]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8478A13C478 for ; Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:12:19 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lstewart@freebsd.org) X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: Ao8CAI/hwkfSVCQt/2dsb2JhbACrfw X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.25,404,1199631600"; d="scan'208";a="185099614" Received: from unknown (HELO newbox.caia.swin.edu.au) ([210.84.36.45]) by outbound.icp-qv1-irony-out4.iinet.net.au with ESMTP; 26 Feb 2008 08:42:48 +0900 Message-ID: <47C35277.7000700@freebsd.org> Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:42:47 +1100 From: Lawrence Stewart User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.4 (X11/20070625) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Peter Schuller References: <200802251858.05767.peter.schuller@infidyne.com> In-Reply-To: <200802251858.05767.peter.schuller@infidyne.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Recommended virtualization technique for debugging/developing FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:12:20 -0000 Hi Peter, Peter Schuller wrote: > Hello, > > I was wondering what people use, in the abscense of suitable actual hardware, > to debug/develop FreeBSD (the kernel in particular). I'm willing to resort to > almost any host, including Windows, as long as I have something reliable. > > I haven't had much luck with qemu (crashes), nor virtualbox (crashes). I was > going to go for vmware on Windows, but while it ran FreeBSD pretty well, > before I had even percolated the disk layout enough to trigger the bug > (required root-on-zfs) I was hoping to trigger, the vmware configuration tool > crapped out on me and produced a configuration it could not itself read. > > What do all you regular kernel developers use, if not physical hardware? > Not trying to discount your experiences, but I've had nothing but success using Vmware under linux as a FreeBSD development platform. The vmware tools take some coercing to work on FreeBSD 7/8, but I've done it and they work fine so far. One thing I will note is that Vmware really messes with the kernel's timing and so time dependent behaviour will often manifest itself differently in vmware than on real hardware. Race conditions, locking problems, etc. are all less likely to show up in Vmware than on real hardware in my experience. Definitely not a show stopper, but something to be aware of when using it as a dev platform. I have a step by step build guide which I created when setting up my home vmware dev server which I'd be more than happy to share with you if you're interested. Cheers, Lawrence