libvirt users - May 2015 - Using Virtio drivers with kernal 2.6.18-164.el5

Hi All

I looked at this page for reference to using virtio drivers on KVM guests.

http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/Virtio

In the requirements section it is mentioned that we need a virtio 
compatible guest with kernel >= 2.6.25

One of my guest has this version:

[root@localhost ~]# uname -a
Linux localhost 2.6.18-164.el5 #1 SMP Thu Sep 3 03:28:30 EDT 2009 x86_64 
x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I was still able to use the virtio drivers by enabling the corresponding 
options in the qemu xml file and also i created a new initrd image file 
inside my guest using the mkinitrd command as mentioned in the link 
provided above.

My question is , Is it fine to use the virtio drivers with the kernel 
that i have for my guest or i definitely need to get to kernel version 
 >= 2.6.25 ?

Thanks
Jatin

My guest is:

[root@localhost ~]# cat /etc/*release
CentOS release 5.4 (Final)

Let me know if i need to provide any more information in this regard.

Thanks
Jatin

On 5/6/2015 11:11 AM, Jatin Davey wrote:
> Hi All
>
> I looked at this page for reference to using virtio drivers on KVM guests.
>
> http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/Virtio
>
> In the requirements section it is mentioned that we need a virtio 
> compatible guest with kernel >= 2.6.25
>
> One of my guest has this version:
>
> [root@localhost ~]# uname -a
> Linux localhost 2.6.18-164.el5 #1 SMP Thu Sep 3 03:28:30 EDT 2009 
> x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
>
> I was still able to use the virtio drivers by enabling the 
> corresponding options in the qemu xml file and also i created a new 
> initrd image file inside my guest using the mkinitrd command as 
> mentioned in the link provided above.
>
> My question is , Is it fine to use the virtio drivers with the kernel 
> that i have for my guest or i definitely need to get to kernel version 
> >= 2.6.25 ?
>
> Thanks
> Jatin
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> libvirt-users mailing list
> libvirt-users@redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libvirt-users

2015-05-06 9:12 GMT+03:00 Jatin Davey
<jashokda@cisco.com>:
> My guest is:
>
> [root@localhost ~]# cat /etc/*release
> CentOS release 5.4 (Final)
>
> Let me know if i need to provide any more information in this regard.

In case of centos you can use 2.6.18 because redhat backported all
needed virtio drivers from never kernels.

-- 
Vasiliy Tolstov,
e-mail: v.tolstov@selfip.ru
jabber: vase@selfip.ru