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Date:      Sun, 9 Feb 2014 16:10:12 -0800
From:      Neel Natu <neelnatu@gmail.com>
To:        Craig Rodrigues <rodrigc@freebsd.org>
Cc:        "freebsd-virtualization@freebsd.org" <freebsd-virtualization@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Detect of BHyve VM was powered off or rebooted?
Message-ID:  <CAFgRE9FXtd_MhmzBbs_f=SNt16wgOSOOwfXn9R7rW1ofzX2Aew@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAG=rPVcsGG7u_5iuPbn2htvmQBYd=bm_9SE2SuA_ZJtMLKGDoA@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <CAG=rPVcfYQ2nUaZYuc6teL2r%2BQZzxhuoV052zgf6=Dxh8MeNcA@mail.gmail.com> <CAGBxaX=QiO_eThN3gXoEeRJ%2BBqpuA3kCGayORGhgC7b_yNKYGA@mail.gmail.com> <CAG=rPVcsGG7u_5iuPbn2htvmQBYd=bm_9SE2SuA_ZJtMLKGDoA@mail.gmail.com>

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Hi Craig,

On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 2:18 PM, Craig Rodrigues <rodrigc@freebsd.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 1:32 PM, Aryeh Friedman <aryeh.friedman@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 4:11 PM, Craig Rodrigues <rodrigc@freebsd.org>wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I posted some rc.d scripts that I am using to boot a BHyve VM
>>> and send the output to a serial console using the /dev/nmdm
>>> driver:
>>>
>>>
>>> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-virtualization/2014-January/002040.html
>>>
>>> It works quite well.  There is some things I would like to improve,
>>> and would like some advice on the best way to do it.
>>>
>>> (1)  If the VM was destroyed with bhyvectl --destroy --vm ${VM_NAME},
>>>       then I do not want to automatically restart the VM in the script.
>>>       User should manually:  service bhyvevm start
>>>
>>> (2)  If the VM was powered down, via shutdown -p, or halt -p,
>>>        then in my script I do not want to restart the VM in the script.
>>>        User should manually:  service bhyvevm start
>>>
>>> (3)   If the VM was rebooted via "reboot" or "shutdown -r",
>>>        then I *do* want the script to restart the VM.
>>>
>>> I think if I change my start_vm.sh script to do something like:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> (
>>>  while [ -e /dev/vmm/${VM} ]; do
>>>     /usr/sbin/bhyve -c 16 -m 8G -A -H -P -g 0 -s 0:0,hostbridge -s 1:0,lpc
>>> -s 2:0,virtio-net,${TAP} -s 3:0,virtio-blk,${IMG} -l com1,${CONS_A} ${VM}"
>>>  done
>>>
>>> )  &
>>>
>>>
>>> then this might cover cases (1) and (3), but what will cover
>>> case (2)?
>>>
>>> Thanks for any advice.
>>>
>>
>> The options you gave (which are really the only ones available) do not
>> distinguish between the reason for the termination of the instance of bhyve
>> pointing to /dev/vmm/XXX  (it just does a normal termination).
>>
>
> Did you play with any of these flags to bhyvectl?
>
>        [--get-vmcs-exit-ctls]
>        [--get-vmcs-exit-reason]
>        [--get-vmcs-exit-qualification]
>        [--get-vmcs-exit-interruption-info]
>
> If I do:
> bhyvectl --get-vmcs-exit-reason --vm vm1
>
> I get:
> vmcs_exit_reason[0]     0x000000000000001e
>
> If I look at:
>
> http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/sys/amd64/vmm/intel/vmcs.h?view=markup#l310
>
> we have:
> #define EXIT_REASON_INOUT 30
>
> Linux has this stuff also:
> http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source/arch/x86/include/asm/vmx.h?v=3.1#L250
>
> so I guess these values are defined in some Intel manual.
>

Yes, but this an entirely different thing. The VMCS exit reason is
used to inform the hypervisor what condition caused the guest to stop
executing - e.g. a nested page fault.

Please don't use it to infer whether the guest wanted to reboot or poweroff :-)

>
>
>> In my playing with this for almost a month the only solution seems to be
>> put a trigger on instance shutdown via whatever method to leave a "cookie"
>> file behind on the host (note I have not nor plan to do this in any of my
>> own work).
>>
>
> Yes, I can see why this might need to be done.  I might need to do that
> myself.  However, if bhyvectl can be used to provide adequate status
> information as to why the VM exited, I might be able to avoid this.
>
> It would be nicer though if /usr/sbin/bhyve returned
> the EXIT_REASON in its status code.
>

Agreed - see my reply to your original post.

best
Neel

>
>
>>
>>   An other question is it wise to auto-reboot regardless of reason of the
>> hypervisor termination?
>>
>
> I think the answer is "it depends".  If someone
> does "reboot" or "shutdown -r", I think it is reasonable to restart the
> VM.  If someone does "halt -p" or "shutdown -p", I think it is reasonable
> to not restart the VM.  For any other error condition, I think it is
> reasonable to not restart the VM.
>
> I think that there is no  single answer for all users and all applications.
> In my case, I am running BHyve VM's as "headless" which
> I access via the /dev/nmdm driver.  If the VM reboots normally, I want it
> to restart.
>
>  --
> Craig
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