Bug 501314

Summary: No beep when running xen kernel
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Reporter: Veaceslav Falico <vfalico>
Component: kernel-xenAssignee: Igor Mammedov <imammedo>
Status: CLOSED ERRATA QA Contact: Virtualization Bugs <virt-bugs>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: 5.3CC: clalance, imammedo, jzheng, leiwang, lersek, minovotn, mrezanin, peterm, qcai, qwan, tao, xen-maint, yuzhang, yuzhou
Target Milestone: rcKeywords: Reopened
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Last Closed: 2011-07-21 10:25:32 UTC Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
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Bug Depends On:    
Bug Blocks: 514490    
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Description Flags
Allows Dom0 to use PC speaker. none

Description Veaceslav Falico 2009-05-18 14:02:31 UTC
When booting the xen kernel (kernel-xen-2.6.18-128.1.1.el5), he no longer get any warning beeps.  It did work fine with the corresponding regular kernel (kernel-2.6.18-128.1.1.el5).

Note that customer is talking about the beep sound from the builtin speaker, not the sound/audio system.  The one that gets rung by the shell when something goes wrong, or which we hear when running xkbbell.  When running the xen kernel, xkbbell does not generate any sound, but otherwise appears to exit normally. The pcspkr module IS loaded.  The problem is elsewhere. Regular sound/audio system is working fine.

I searched a bit on this and found that a bug has been submitted for Fedora without any resolution. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=230900

I searched upstream and found a patch which I though might help resolve this issue.

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.emulators.xen.cvs/11376
http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-changelog/2007-03/msg00094.html

I compiled a test kernel with the above patch and tested, but unfortunately didn't see this issue resolved by the above patch.

How to reproduce:

It's very easy to reproduce.

- Boot a system to 5.3 stock kernel. Hook up a keyboard physically and run "backspace" on a terminal window or run xkbbell in gnome-terminal. You would hear the beep sound.

- Boot the same system to 5.3 xen kernel and test. There wouldn't be any beep sound.

Comment 3 Miroslav Rezanina 2009-06-15 06:46:22 UTC
This bug was fixed in kernel 2.6.18-137, where beep device was added. So this bug can be closed.

Comment 4 Chris Lalancette 2009-07-09 12:26:16 UTC
Since these seems to have been fixed by the ALSA update, going to close this as a DUP of that.  If this continues to be a problem after 5.4 is released, feel free to reopen.

Chris Lalancette

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 483594 ***

Comment 5 Veaceslav Falico 2009-11-30 13:33:22 UTC
Reopening, didn't help...

Comment 7 Laszlo Ersek 2010-11-12 15:04:10 UTC
I reproduced the problem using the following two kernels:
- speaker works from dom0:        2.6.18-226.el5
- speaker doesn't work from dom0: 2.6.18-226.el5xen

It seems that the current RHEL5 xen hypervisor doesn't allow direct access to the PC speaker. construct_dom0() in "arch/x86/domain_build.c" does the following:

    /* Interval Timer (PIT). */
    rc |= ioports_deny_access(dom0, 0x40, 0x43);
    /* PIT Channel 2 / PC Speaker Control. */
    rc |= ioports_deny_access(dom0, 0x61, 0x61);

Furthermore, it only seems to *emulate* the PIT and the PC speaker; it never touches real speaker hardware. See:
- guest_io_write() in "xen/arch/x86/traps.c",
- pv_pit_handler() in "xen/arch/x86/hvm/i8254.c",
- handle_speaker_io() -||-,
- speaker_ioport_write() -||-,
- pit_set_gate() -||-.

I found two mailing list messages / patches that allow dom0 to access the PC speaker of the host:
- The first is "allow Dom0 to drive PC speaker" from Jan Beulich [0].
- The second has the same subject [1], and it seems to be a cleaned up version of the previous patch. This one was committed to xen-unstable [2], c/s 15882:9dd580b8b056.

There are some deeper differences between the patches. For example, the committed version doesn't seem to provide direct access to port 0x42.

I'm assigning this to myself. I'll try to backport and test [2] unless I'm told otherwise.

For the patch to have any effect, I believe it will be important *not* to start the hypervisor with "clocksource=pit". (Without the parameter it should usually work as if with "clocksource=hpet".)

Veaceslav, does the customer still care?

Thanks,
lacos

[0] http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-devel/2007-08/msg00489.html
[1] http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-changelog/2007-09/msg00226.html
[2] http://xenbits.xensource.com/xen-unstable.hg?rev/15882

Comment 9 Igor Mammedov 2011-05-09 08:09:17 UTC
Backported of cs 15882:9dd580b8b056 from xen-unstable.hg

Comment 10 Igor Mammedov 2011-05-09 08:48:55 UTC
Created attachment 497739 [details]
Allows Dom0 to use PC speaker.

For this to work, Xen shouldn't be booted with a 'clocksource=pit'.

Comment 11 RHEL Program Management 2011-05-19 22:59:12 UTC
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion in a Red
Hat Enterprise Linux maintenance release.  Product Management has requested
further review of this request by Red Hat Engineering, for potential
inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Update release for currently deployed
products.  This request is not yet committed for inclusion in an Update
release.

Comment 13 Jarod Wilson 2011-05-25 16:29:12 UTC
Patch(es) available in kernel-2.6.18-264.el5
You can download this test kernel (or newer) from http://people.redhat.com/jwilson/el5
Detailed testing feedback is always welcomed.

Comment 15 Qixiang Wan 2011-06-02 05:32:56 UTC
tried with kernel-2.6.18-262.el5, no beep when run 'echo -e "\007"', verified with kernel-2.6.18-264.el5, there is beep sound when run 'echo -e "\007"'.

Comment 16 errata-xmlrpc 2011-07-21 10:25:32 UTC
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem
described in this bug report. This report is therefore being
closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information
on therefore solution and/or where to find the updated files,
please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report
if the solution does not work for you.

http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2011-1065.html