Package Details: xen 4.20.0-2

Git Clone URL: https://aur.archlinux.org/xen.git (read-only, click to copy)
Package Base: xen
Description: Open-source type-1 or baremetal hypervisor
Upstream URL: https://xenproject.org/
Keywords: hypervisor virtualization xen
Licenses: GPL2
Submitter: sergej
Maintainer: Refutationalist
Last Packager: Refutationalist
Votes: 184
Popularity: 0.051384
First Submitted: 2009-11-09 11:22 (UTC)
Last Updated: 2025-03-13 08:19 (UTC)

Pinned Comments

Refutationalist commented on 2025-03-12 12:06 (UTC) (edited on 2025-03-13 08:23 (UTC) by Refutationalist)

We've moved to the newly-stable 4.20.0 branch. There are also other changes:

  • stubdom is fixed by disabling the vtmp and vtpmmgr components. This gets rid of a few source files and our remaining patches.
  • Debug files are only removed if the debug option is not set in makepkg.cfg (or the PKGBUILD itself)
  • pygrub has been removed
  • optdepends are adjusted for the upcoming xen-grub split package for the various Xen flavored builds.

If you're still using pygrub note that it is deprecated. The solution is to build PV grub instead, which used to be in AUR but is now missing. I am asking a couple questions on the mailing list, and I intend to put my current build of xen-grub (which supersedes xen-pvhgrub) on AUR as soon as possible. If you need to build it before that occurs, you can find it in my PKGBUILD repo.

EDIT: 4.20.0-2 adds support for the xen-edk2 package, which has a fixed UEFI for xen

Latest Comments

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Sven commented on 2023-04-23 23:45 (UTC)

@Refutationalist Can you provide a link to upstream's requested best practices?

I have checked the stable-4.17 branch. The release of 4.17.0 was 4 months ago. Since then, the branch has been updated periodically. In result, everytime I build this package, I will end up with a different commit/version of xen. Please understand that this comes to me as a surprise. On Gentoo, authors typically offered some sort to of *-git package that would always give you the latest version from git. I'm not quite sure if such packages exist in AUR. But please indicate in the name of the package, that it's not building a release but always the latest from a certain branch.

At some point, the version reported by pkgver() was 4.17.0. Currently, it is 4.17.1pre. pkgver() has reported this string for a while now and it will continue to do so until upstream changes it to 4.17.1rc or 4.17.1 (release). So it's basically impossible to tell which xen-*.pkg.tar.zst is newer or older. This seems like a nightmare for us users to me. I would like to persuade you to include the date and (optionally) even the git commit hash in the output of pkgver().

If you had a binary repo, you could only push out updates to users if the version number actually changes (actually it needs to increase!). So what pkgver() currently does is insufficient for the purpose of your binary repo and it's also a hassle for us users who use the AUR.

The current PKGBUILD is also incompatible with package managers like yay. Yay will only pick up an update if the pkgver variable in PKGBUILD changes. The pkgver() function is ignored in this context.

Also, some users may prefer repeatable builds. With the current PKGBUILD, it's not trivial to repeat a previous build. It's quite a hassle to find the commit id of a previously built binary package and to patch the PKGBUILD to repeat that build.

Sorry for that much criticism. I appreciate your contribution. I currently rely on your work for my Arch-based dom0.

Refutationalist commented on 2023-04-23 22:26 (UTC)

@Sven: The package is built using upstream's requested best practices, particularly in regards to security. Since this way does not have the PKGBUILD strictly following point releases, it made sense to follow guidelines so we know what package we're building: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/VCS_package_guidelines#The_pkgver()_function

That said, my ability to do package maintenance is limited at the moment. It'll be a few weeks before I can do more work on the package, at which point I'm planning on implementing some build automation so I can have more rigorous testing and-- hopefully-- a binary repo.

Sven commented on 2023-04-23 21:49 (UTC)

Sorry for posting so many messages. Please don't simply fetch the stable-4.17 branch. Please fetch a release tag, such as RELEASE-4.17.0.

Found that makepkg automatically updates the pkgver variable in PKGBUILD, if the pkgver() function exists. I would under the impression that this was not a package always fetching the latest from git. I expected this package to fetch the specified version (4.17.0) from git.

Sven commented on 2023-04-23 21:41 (UTC)

Why does running makepkg on this package modify the PKGBUILD file? I'm alarmed. That shouldn't happen. To be more specific, it changes the pkgver inside PKGBUILD from 4.17.0 to 4.17.1pre. I'd really like to build xen 4.17.0.

Sven commented on 2023-04-23 21:30 (UTC)

It seems like man-db is a missing build dep. Without man-db being installed, makepkg fails with some file not found error.

ArthurBorsboom commented on 2022-12-19 20:31 (UTC)

The Xen package upgrade 4.16.3 > 4.17.0 worked without any issues. Thanks for the work.

ArthurBorsboom commented on 2022-11-15 10:46 (UTC)

Thanks for the nice work.

Do you think it is possible to make xen-docs a separate package as well and mark it as optional ? I dislike the 70+ haskell dependencies just for pandoc/xen-docs, which I do not use/need.

Refutationalist commented on 2022-11-15 02:32 (UTC)

@vibrion are you having the same problem with the new package? might be worth taking up with the xen-users mailing list.

Refutationalist commented on 2022-11-15 02:32 (UTC) (edited on 2022-11-16 00:13 (UTC) by Refutationalist)

Important: QEMU is now it's own package. See xen-qemu.

Here's my updated Xen, which now tracks git stable, as suggested by the Xen security team. For more information about the build, check my PKGBUILD git repo: https://github.com/refutationalist/saur

xen-pvhgrub, a method for booting kernels inside a PVH domain will be in AUR as soon as it lets me. I'm going to be looking into a package repo for now.

EDIT: xen-pvhgrub is now available in AUR.

vibrion commented on 2022-11-07 12:47 (UTC)

Hi I'm having two strange problems (unrelated?) with two different servers.On an old IBM3100 M4 server latest xen qemuless version is working fine but for some reason limits the memory to only 8Gb (it has 24Gb). Booting directly to kernel without xen, memory is properly detected. Passing mem=24G to xen.cfg doesnt reflect any change On the other hand on a Huawei server im stuck on kernel 5.19.11 cause trying to scale up this version it wont boot (errors trying to mount root). Again booting without xen it works fine (even with latest 6.xx version) Thanks in advance! Martin

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