I''ve checked in a large number of changes to the balloon driver to the 2.0-testing and unstable trees. There should now be rather fewer bugs and the balloon will play more nicely with other device drivers (by which I mean it is less likely to crash the VM). To see balloon info: cat /proc/xen/balloon (I''m happy to receive feedback on the layout/contents. I confused myself with it while testing so I guess it may not be very intuitive right now :-). To set memory target: echo <memsz> >/proc/xen/balloon (<memsz> is e.g., 300M, 2G, whatever). NOTE: If you set the memory target too low it is still very easy to kill your VM (on 2.6 the OOM killer gets activated). I''m not sure how avoidable this is -- for now you''ll just have to exercise caution when reducing the target below a few 10''s of MBs. -- Keir ------------------------------------------------------- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/ _______________________________________________ Xen-devel mailing list Xen-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xen-devel
Hi i''m willing to test it, i think i''m in xen 2.0 and not 2.0-testing. Is there an easy way to migrate ? To use the ballon driver, what is needed apart compiling the driver in xen0 and xenU kernel ? Is there a documentation ? Couple of weeks ago i''ve seen a message stating that in order to be able to shrink/unshrink memory size you have to pass a parameter at xenU kernel at boot time . What is this parameter, have i misunderstood ? Mat On December 2, 5:45 pm Keir Fraser <Keir.Fraser@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:> > I''ve checked in a large number of changes to the balloon driver to the > 2.0-testing and unstable trees. There should now be rather fewer bugs > and the balloon will play more nicely with other device drivers (by > which I mean it is less likely to crash the VM). > > To see balloon info: cat /proc/xen/balloon > (I''m happy to receive feedback on the layout/contents. I confused > myself with it while testing so I guess it may not be very intuitive > right now :-). > > To set memory target: echo <memsz> >/proc/xen/balloon > (<memsz> is e.g., 300M, 2G, whatever). > > NOTE: If you set the memory target too low it is still very easy to > kill your VM (on 2.6 the OOM killer gets activated). I''m not sure how > avoidable this is -- for now you''ll just have to exercise caution when > reducing the target below a few 10''s of MBs. > > -- Keir >------------------------------------------------------- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/ _______________________________________________ Xen-devel mailing list Xen-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xen-devel
> Hi > i''m willing to test it, i think i''m in xen 2.0 and not 2.0-testing. > Is there an easy way to migrate ?Just build the xen-2.0-testing tree instead of xen-2.0.> To use the ballon driver, what is needed apart compiling the driver in xen0 > and xenU kernel ?It is always built-in -- you don''t need to configure anything.> Is there a documentation ?No. :-) To use from within the domain, just # echo <memsize> >/proc/xen/balloon.> Couple of weeks ago i''ve seen a message stating that in order to be able to > shrink/unshrink memory size you have to pass a parameter at xenU kernel at > boot time . What is this parameter, have i misunderstood ?If you want to be able to grow a domain''s memory allocation to greater than its initial allocation, you need to add a "mem=<maxmemsz>" boot parameter to the guest OS. If you only want to grow/shrink within the bounds of the initial allocation then you don''t need to do this. -- Keir> Mat > On December 2, 5:45 pm Keir Fraser <Keir.Fraser@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote: > > > > I''ve checked in a large number of changes to the balloon driver to the > > 2.0-testing and unstable trees. There should now be rather fewer bugs > > and the balloon will play more nicely with other device drivers (by > > which I mean it is less likely to crash the VM). > > > > To see balloon info: cat /proc/xen/balloon > > (I''m happy to receive feedback on the layout/contents. I confused > > myself with it while testing so I guess it may not be very intuitive > > right now :-). > > > > To set memory target: echo <memsz> >/proc/xen/balloon > > (<memsz> is e.g., 300M, 2G, whatever). > > > > NOTE: If you set the memory target too low it is still very easy to > > kill your VM (on 2.6 the OOM killer gets activated). I''m not sure how > > avoidable this is -- for now you''ll just have to exercise caution when > > reducing the target below a few 10''s of MBs. > > > > -- Keir > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide > Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. > Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. > http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/ > _______________________________________________ > Xen-devel mailing list > Xen-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xen-devel------------------------------------------------------- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/ _______________________________________________ Xen-devel mailing list Xen-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xen-devel
On Thu, 2004-12-02 at 10:45, Keir Fraser wrote:> To set memory target: echo <memsz> >/proc/xen/balloon > (<memsz> is e.g., 300M, 2G, whatever).Might be nice to make sure the user actually specifies M, G, etc. I tried echoing 60000 and forgot the K the first time. It fails pretty spectacularly when it tries to reduce the memory to 60000 bytes as I''m sure you know. :) On the other hand, if you want users to be able to give just a number and assume bytes, how about checking the number they provide against the amount of memory currently in use to see if it''s likely to cause trouble? Or are there other issues here? Another thing I noticed... xen1:/proc/xen# free total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 62612 32148 30464 0 1848 7908 -/+ buffers/cache: 22392 40220 Swap: 262136 0 262136 xen1:/proc/xen# echo 50M > balloon xen1:/proc/xen# cat balloon Current allocation: 51200 kB Requested target: 51200 kB Low-mem balloon: 14336 kB High-mem balloon: 0 kB Xen hard limit: ??? kB xen1:/proc/xen# free total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 62612 42356 20256 0 1848 7908 -/+ buffers/cache: 32600 30012 Swap: 262136 0 262136 Shouldn''t free get adjusted as well? Thanks, Paul Larson ------------------------------------------------------- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/ _______________________________________________ Xen-devel mailing list Xen-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xen-devel