[Pkg-xen-devel] Bug#695645: xen-utils-common: xm block-attach does not create /dev/xvd* devices on dom0

[James Robertson]

Package: xen-utils-common
Version: 4.1.3-6
Severity: minor

Dear Maintainer,

I am trying to run the following command on a dom0 Debian server in order to mount a vmware vmdk.  I don't want to use kpartx or losetup as they have poor write performance and I'm hoping blktap will provide better performance.

xm block-attach 0 tap:vmdk:/mnt/backup/3MSYDDP01/3MSYDDP01_2-flat.vmdk /dev/xvda1 w 0

However /dev/xvda1 is not created.  I have loaded to following modules for good measure:

modprobe blktap
modprobe xen-blkback
modprobe xen-blkfront
modprobe xen-evtchn
modprobe xenfs
modprobe xen-gntalloc
modprobe xen-gntdev
modprobe xen-netback
modprobe xen-netfront
modprobe xen-pciback
modprobe xen-pcifront
modprobe xen_wdt

And tried manually creating the blokc device beforehand.

mknod /dev/xvda1 b 220 0

I searched for answers and found nothing that suggests that shouldn't work?

-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages xen-utils-common depends on:
ii  gawk            1:4.0.1+dfsg-2
ii  lsb-base        4.1+Debian8
ii  python          2.7.3~rc2-1
ii  ucf             3.0025+nmu3
ii  udev            175-7
ii  xenstore-utils  4.1.3-6

xen-utils-common recommends no packages.

xen-utils-common suggests no packages.

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