I'm happy to report that after upgrading the kernel to the backported 2.6.32 the VM has been up for several days without incident.
Before the upgrade I tried to install postgres and the VM locked up repeatedly. There may have been something involved that triggered the bug. After the upgrade the postgres install worked, as has everything else. I didn't realize the kernels were at all aware of being a kvm guest; your diagnosis looks exactly correct. Since the problem with the kernel is fixed, I think it's OK to close this bug. Thanks for your help. Ross Boylan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org