I've been using virt-manager and kvm with a disk image (as in the raw bits)
from a physical windows 7 machine. Initial performance was dreadful, but
improved as I switched to virtio and spice. I've been running linux
VM's somewhat longer (much longer if you count kvm without libvirt).
There are lots of choices exposed by virt-manager. How do I find out what the
choices mean, and which are good ones? This was true for the video (resolved by
following instructions for spice, though I still wonder what the other settings
are for), disks and the network.
In particular, I have a choice of lots of interfaces for my network; I picked
eth1:macvtap because I wanted to bridge eth1. But there is a "Source
Mode" which I left at VEPA, even though Bridged was another choice. But
the bridge would already seem implicit in picking a source device of
eth1:macvtap. I don't know what "source mode" means. The choices
in the GUI seem like some of the options listed under forward on
http://libvirt.org/formatnetwork.html; is that a good place to look for
clarification.
I started a 2nd VM that also used eth1:macvtap (with virtio) and it had almost
no network throughput. So maybe I should use some other method? I notice the
network manager connection gui allows creation of bridges on the network; should
I be using that?
I have been reading documentation, but I haven't found either a
task-oriented discussion ("to get a windows machine working well, use these
options" or "follow these steps") or an easy way to go from the
choices in the GUI to a discussion of their meaning.
Thanks for any help you can offer.
Ross Boylan
Dear Boyland,
In collaboration with some of this mailing list users, I had put some effort in
optimising the guest settings in function of a windows guest. The libvirt-gui
doesn't include these options. You'll have to edit the XML in virsh.
This was my conclusion on 15-03-2015 but I added the hugepages tip in this list
today. As for networking, I only use or bridged or the default virtual network
(NAT), so can't help you more here.
Here below, a summary of tips:
- Setting video to QXL and the display channel to Spice
<video>
<model type='qxl' ram='65536' vram='65536'
heads='1'/>
<address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00'
slot='0x02' function='0x0'/>
</video>
<channel type='spicevmc'>
<target type='virtio' name='com.redhat.spice.0'/>
<address type='virtio-serial' controller='0'
bus='0' port='1'/>
</channel>
- Using HyperV enlightenemt timer
<features>
<hyperv>
<relaxed state='on'/>
<vapic state='on'/>
<spinlocks state='on' retries='8191'/>
</hyperv>
<features/>
<clock ...>
<timer name='hypervclock' present='yes'/>
</clock>
- Delete the tablet entry in the input section or set the USB-bus to USB2 or
USB3
- Use hugepages
<memoryBacking>
<hugepages/>
</memoryBacking>
Again thanks Daniel and Andrey.
Hope this helps.
Grts, Dominique.
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Boylan, Ross [mailto:Ross.Boylan@ucsf.edu]
Verzonden: vrijdag 20 maart 2015 1:52
Aan: libvirt-users@redhat.com
Onderwerp: [libvirt-users] getting oriented/networking
I've been using virt-manager and kvm with a disk image (as in the raw bits)
from a physical windows 7 machine. Initial performance was dreadful, but
improved as I switched to virtio and spice. I've been running linux
VM's somewhat longer (much longer if you count kvm without libvirt).
There are lots of choices exposed by virt-manager. How do I find out what the
choices mean, and which are good ones? This was true for the video (resolved by
following instructions for spice, though I still wonder what the other settings
are for), disks and the network.
In particular, I have a choice of lots of interfaces for my network; I picked
eth1:macvtap because I wanted to bridge eth1. But there is a "Source
Mode" which I left at VEPA, even though Bridged was another choice. But
the bridge would already seem implicit in picking a source device of
eth1:macvtap. I don't know what "source mode" means. The choices
in the GUI seem like some of the options listed under forward on
http://libvirt.org/formatnetwork.html; is that a good place to look for
clarification.
I started a 2nd VM that also used eth1:macvtap (with virtio) and it had almost
no network throughput. So maybe I should use some other method? I notice the
network manager connection gui allows creation of bridges on the network; should
I be using that?
I have been reading documentation, but I haven't found either a
task-oriented discussion ("to get a windows machine working well, use these
options" or "follow these steps") or an easy way to go from the
choices in the GUI to a discussion of their meaning.
Thanks for any help you can offer.
Ross Boylan
_______________________________________________
libvirt-users mailing list
libvirt-users@redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libvirt-users
Thanks very much. Unfortunately, networking is currently so slow as to be
non-functional (most operations time out). It's also erratic: I had 2 VM
that were close to identical--they were both based on the same disk image--and
even when I set the networking the same one was fine and one was very slow.
Today I started up the VM that had good networking, and it now has bad
networking.
Here's one of the network specifications:
<interface type='direct'>
<mac address='52:54:00:61:7c:dc'/>
<source dev='eth1' mode='vepa'/>
<model type='virtio'/>
<address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00'
slot='0x03' function='0x0'/>
</interface>
The one that was originally fast also had a NAT network, and the one that was
originally slow was mode bridge before I changed it to vepa, which didn't
help.
The drivers came from
http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/virtio-win/latest/images/virtio-win-0.1-100.iso
in the 32 bit windows 7 directory of the iso (host is 64 bit, as is the emulated
machine; Windows 7 is 32 bit). I've tried shutting down, removing and
reinstalling the network adaptor, and various other things.
Ross
________________________________________
From: Dominique Ramaekers [dominique.ramaekers@cometal.be]
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 11:21 PM
To: Boylan, Ross; libvirt-users@redhat.com
Subject: RE: [libvirt-users] getting oriented/networking
Dear Boyland,
In collaboration with some of this mailing list users, I had put some effort in
optimising the guest settings in function of a windows guest. The libvirt-gui
doesn't include these options. You'll have to edit the XML in virsh.
This was my conclusion on 15-03-2015 but I added the hugepages tip in this list
today. As for networking, I only use or bridged or the default virtual network
(NAT), so can't help you more here.
Here below, a summary of tips:
- Setting video to QXL and the display channel to Spice
<video>
<model type='qxl' ram='65536'
vram='65536' heads='1'/>
<address type='pci' domain='0x0000'
bus='0x00' slot='0x02' function='0x0'/>
</video>
<channel type='spicevmc'>
<target type='virtio'
name='com.redhat.spice.0'/>
<address type='virtio-serial' controller='0'
bus='0' port='1'/>
</channel>
- Using HyperV enlightenemt timer
<features>
<hyperv>
<relaxed state='on'/>
<vapic state='on'/>
<spinlocks state='on'
retries='8191'/>
</hyperv>
<features/>
<clock ...>
<timer name='hypervclock' present='yes'/>
</clock>
- Delete the tablet entry in the input section or set the USB-bus to USB2 or
USB3
- Use hugepages
<memoryBacking>
<hugepages/>
</memoryBacking>
Again thanks Daniel and Andrey.
Hope this helps.
Grts, Dominique.
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Boylan, Ross [mailto:Ross.Boylan@ucsf.edu]
Verzonden: vrijdag 20 maart 2015 1:52
Aan: libvirt-users@redhat.com
Onderwerp: [libvirt-users] getting oriented/networking
I've been using virt-manager and kvm with a disk image (as in the raw bits)
from a physical windows 7 machine. Initial performance was dreadful, but
improved as I switched to virtio and spice. I've been running linux
VM's somewhat longer (much longer if you count kvm without libvirt).
There are lots of choices exposed by virt-manager. How do I find out what the
choices mean, and which are good ones? This was true for the video (resolved by
following instructions for spice, though I still wonder what the other settings
are for), disks and the network.
In particular, I have a choice of lots of interfaces for my network; I picked
eth1:macvtap because I wanted to bridge eth1. But there is a "Source
Mode" which I left at VEPA, even though Bridged was another choice. But
the bridge would already seem implicit in picking a source device of
eth1:macvtap. I don't know what "source mode" means. The choices
in the GUI seem like some of the options listed under forward on
http://libvirt.org/formatnetwork.html; is that a good place to look for
clarification.
I started a 2nd VM that also used eth1:macvtap (with virtio) and it had almost
no network throughput. So maybe I should use some other method? I notice the
network manager connection gui allows creation of bridges on the network; should
I be using that?
I have been reading documentation, but I haven't found either a
task-oriented discussion ("to get a windows machine working well, use these
options" or "follow these steps") or an easy way to go from the
choices in the GUI to a discussion of their meaning.
Thanks for any help you can offer.
Ross Boylan
_______________________________________________
libvirt-users mailing list
libvirt-users@redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libvirt-users