Current Hypervisor State is BETA
We experience a major problem with the beroNet Hypervisor Operating System. The problem results in a frozen state of the appliance after several days, sometimes weeks of production use. The freeze is a result of a Linux Kernel Panic which taints the Kernel, after a while the Kernel locks up. Unfortunately we have not detected this issue during testing, as it does not happen immediately. As a matter of fact the issue was not present in the 0.9.7 version and below. We know this, because all customers that use the 0.9.7 version and the beroNet Cloud all have uptimes of more than 100 days, sometimes even more than 200 days.
We were wondering what big differences have been implemented between 0.9.7 and 1.0 which could result in such a major problem and we have the following guesses:
- Linux Kernel of dom0
- XEN Kernel
- QEMU toolstack
- Alpine Linux version
- VM Format (especially Disk Format)
Since roughly 2 months we are investigating these possibilities step-by-step by downgrading each component back to the 0.9.7 state. The new Version 1.01 is built completely on the base system of the 0.9.7, that is why the Upgrade to the 1.01 requires an installation via the recovery stick. The whole system needs to be re-installed, but there is an option to maintain the VMs.
Even after having downgraded the whole Alpine OS, the problem still persists. We believe currently that the new VM Format which was introduced with the 0.9.8 Version triggers the problem. It means, that VMs which where created after the 0.9.8 version will have the new format already. Even if the Hypervisor is downgraded the format will persist.
There are currently 2 options to go back to the 0.9.7 VM format, either by reinstalling the VM under 0.9.7 or 1.02, or use the 1.02 disk conversion function to convert the disk of the VM to qcow.
As we are not yet completely sure if these steps finally resolve the appliance freezing issue, that is why we decided to set the Hypervisor state to Beta and not for production use.
NOTE: Instead of using the Hypervisor, any operating system can be installed on the appliance, even other Hypervisors like VMware or Microsofts HyperV.
We are intensively searching for a final solution, so that we can go on in enhancing the hypervisor. Everybody who wants to contribute can still use the hypervisor and provide Debug files which we can use for analysis.