Guest running Linux 2.2 kernel

old_guy

Is that going to work? The 17 year old guest is running in VMware at the moment. i am considering building a new system based on xcp-ng but only if that guest will run. It's nothing fancy, just needs filesystem and networking.

Danp

I assume that you have considered updating the guest OS. Why isn't this an option?

Andrew

@old_guy The answer is, mostly yes...

I just installed Debian 3 (woody) from "dvd" and it worked without any XCP changes. Started with OTHER template and HVM, RTL8139 network.

I had to do some work on Debian to make it install because it's soooooo old.

It has some network issues with the kernel drivers but does work. CDROM has issues and no Xen tools. It can be slow with just emulated devices.

You should upgrade. But if you CAN NOT then make sure the VM is not connected to the Internet because of all the security holes!

Here's a dmesg output:

Linux version 2.2.20-idepci (herbert@gondolin) (gcc version 2.7.2.3) #1 Sat Apr 20 12:45:19 EST 2002
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
 BIOS-e820: 0009e000 @ 00000000 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 3fb00000 @ 00100000 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000 @ 00000000 (usable)
Warning only 960MB will be used.
Detected 2693593 kHz processor.
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 5373.95 BogoMIPS
Memory: 971416k/983040k available (1164k kernel code, 416k reserved, 9972k data, 72k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 131072 (order 8, 1024k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 524288 (order 9, 2048k)
Page cache hash table entries: 262144 (order 8, 1024k)
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
512K L1 instruction cache
CPU: Intel 00/0d stepping 07
Checking 386/387 coupling... OK, FPU using exception 16 error reporting.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
Checking for popad bug... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
mtrr: v1.35a (19990819) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfb090
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: 00:00 [8086/1237]: Passive release enable (00)
PIIX3: Enabling Passive Release
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0 for Linux NET4.0.
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 524288 bhash 65536)
Starting kswapd v 1.5
vga16fb: initializing
vga16fb: mapped to 0xc00a0000
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 80x30
fb0: VGA16 VGA frame buffer device
Serial driver version 4.27 with HUB-6 MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured
RAM disk driver initialized:  16 RAM disks of 4096K size
loop: registered device at major 7
PIIX3: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 09
PIIX3: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
    ide0: BM-DMA at 0xc220-0xc227, BIOS settings: hda:pio, hdb:pio
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0xc228-0xc22f, BIOS settings: hdc:pio, hdd:pio
hd0: C/H/S=650/0/63 from BIOS ignored
hda: QEMU HARDDISK, ATA DISK drive
hdd: QEMU DVD-ROM, ATAPI CDROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: QEMU HARDDISK, 5120MB w/256kB Cache, CHS=10402/16/63
hdd: ATAPI 4X DVD-ROM drive, 512kB Cache
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.11
FDC 0 is a S82078B
3c59x.c 18Feb01 Donald Becker and others http://www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html
pcnet32.c: PCI bios is present, checking for devices...
rtl8139.c:v1.07 5/6/99 Donald Becker http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/rtl8139.html
eth0: RealTek RTL8139 Fast Ethernet at 0xc100, IRQ 5, 36:ea:c0:5f:72:2d.
  PCI latency timer (CFLT) is unreasonably low at 0.  Setting to 64 clocks.
via-rhine.c:v1.08b-LK1.0.1 12/14/2000  Written by Donald Becker
  http://www.scyld.com/network/via-rhine.html
Partition check:
 hda: hda1 hda2
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.13)
apm: disabled on user request.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 72k freed
Adding Swap: 359848k swap-space (priority -1)
PCI: Increasing latency timer of device 00:20 to 64
eth1: 8139too Fast Ethernet driver 0.9.18-pre4 Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@mandrakesoft.com>
eth1: Linux-2.2 bug reports to Jens David <dg1kjd@afthd.tu-darmstadt.de>
eth1: RealTek RTL8139 Fast Ethernet board found at 0xfc839000, IRQ 5
eth1: Chip is 'RTL-8139C' - MAC address '36:ea:c0:5f:72:2d'.
eth1: Setting 100mbps full-duplex based on auto-negotiated partner ability 05e1.
eth1: Too much work at interrupt, IntrStatus=0x0001.

old_guy

@danp
I did upgrade it from kernel 2.0 when 2.2 came out. I use it to run 1980's Xenix executables and kernel 2.2 is the last to support the iBCS emulation kernel modules.

old_guy

@andrew That looks promising. Of course 2.2 is wide-open with vulnerabilities so this VM lives well away from the outside word.

olivierlambert

Yes, if you run plain HVM (so it comes with emulation and no PV drivers), almost anything should work

old_guy

@olivierlambert
Good, that's the answer I needed thanks.