The attached patches change the way the bootloader is called when creating a PV domain. Currently, in order to provide an interactive environment for the bootloader, the bootloader is run by xm create, using the tty of xm create's caller. This is a problem when a domain is rebooted, as there is no equivalent of xm create with a useful tty.

With these patches, Xend always calls the bootloader, and its interactive I/O is passed through the same pty channel that the domain's console will use when it is created.

All comments appreciated!

Details:

Patch 1 (ptsname) is a wrapper around the ptsname(3) POSIX library function, which doesn't appear to be available in python otherwise.

Patch 2 (bootloader-console) makes the following changes: - the xenconsole client can handle the domain's console pty changing. - xend forwards console traffic between the running bootloader and a pty which it writes to the store so the xenconsole client can see it. - xend runs the bootloader interactively unless the config file tells it explicitly not to. - xm create no longer runs the bootloader.

Yet to come: making "xm console" and "xm create -c" attach early enough in domain building to see the bootloader (at the moment you need to run xenconsole by hand for that).

Cheers,