I am trying to use Xen to consolidate my development server (OpenSolaris 2009.06) as a PV domain onto my desktop machine (OpenSolaris b130), however I''ve noticed that when I boot under Xen, my desktop becomes more sluggish. For example, Firefox scrolls slower and audio playback skips and stutters every few seconds. That''s with no domUs running; it''s even worse when I start a domU, even if it''s idle. My desktop machine is a Sun Ultra 24 with a Core 2 Quad processor and 4 GB of memory, so I can''t imagine hardware is a limitation. I do notice that while ''top'' might report 10% CPU utilization, ''xm top'' will show closer to 70 or 80% CPU utilization in the dom0. I''m not sure how to explain that disparity. I realize this may be an unusual use case, but does anyone have any tips for running Xen on a desktop? Are there any tuning parameters that can be tweaked? Thanks, James
Prudhvi Krishna Surapaneni
2010-Jan-10 22:09 UTC
Re: OpenSolaris Dom0 Desktop Interactivity
I am having a similar problem on b130 on Amd Athalon 64 x2 The machine is a Dell Inspiron 531s No, audio and every thing runs way too slow. I have AMD''s Hardware based Virtualization enabled. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
Prudhvi Krishna Surapaneni wrote:> I am having a similar problem on b130 on Amd Athalon 64 x2 > The machine is a Dell Inspiron 531sDo you have a dom0_mem set? If not, you need to.> No, audio and every thing runs way too slow. I have AMD''s Hardware based Virtualization enabled.Are you using a sata disk in sata mode? e.g. if you do a format, does the disk have a t in the name, e.g. cXtYdZ vs cXdY. If you don''t have the "t", your disk is running in ide mode which we don''t support in xVM because of the very poor performance. MRJ
The problem is probably Xen scheduler itself, you could try to pin physical cores to your domains (including Dom0). Petr On 11/01/2010, Mark Johnson <Mark.Johnson@sun.com> wrote:> > > Prudhvi Krishna Surapaneni wrote: >> I am having a similar problem on b130 on Amd Athalon 64 x2 >> The machine is a Dell Inspiron 531s > > > Do you have a dom0_mem set? If not, you need to. > > >> No, audio and every thing runs way too slow. I have AMD''s Hardware based >> Virtualization enabled. > > Are you using a sata disk in sata mode? e.g. if you do a format, > does the disk have a t in the name, e.g. cXtYdZ vs cXdY. If you > don''t have the "t", your disk is running in ide mode which we > don''t support in xVM because of the very poor performance. > > > > MRJ > > _______________________________________________ > xen-discuss mailing list > xen-discuss@opensolaris.org >
> Are you using a sata disk in sata mode? e.g. if you > do a format, > does the disk have a t in the name, e.g. cXtYdZ vs > cXdY. If you > don''t have the "t", your disk is running in ide mode > which we > don''t support in xVM because of the very poor > performance.How do you change this? -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
Karl Hakimian wrote:>> Are you using a sata disk in sata mode? e.g. if you >> do a format, >> does the disk have a t in the name, e.g. cXtYdZ vs >> cXdY. If you >> don''t have the "t", your disk is running in ide mode >> which we >> don''t support in xVM because of the very poor >> performance. > > How do you change this?There should be a BIOS setting to set it to AHCI mode if you have a modern system. MRJ
Ahh. I see. Not sure why I did not have it on that setting at first. Now is there a way to get solaris to boot again? I''d rather not re-install with this new bios setting if there is a way to have solaris find my rpool now that it is on a different device. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
Karl Hakimian wrote:> Ahh. I see. Not sure why I did not have it on that> setting at first.> > Now is there a way to get solaris to boot again? I''d> rather not re-install with this new bios setting if > there is a way to have solaris find my rpool now > that it is on a different device. There is probably an easier way than this to do it. But this way should work. Switch back to legacy mode (IDE), boot your machine. Get your hostname and hostid info... bash-3.00# hostname core2 bash-3.00# hostid 10fa4034 bash-3.00# echo "hw_serial,0xa?B" | mdb -k hw_serial: hw_serial:32 38 34 38 33 35 38 39 32 0 bash-3.00# Switch to ahci mode, then boot off of a OpenSolaris iso. Patch the hostname and hostid... Then import the rpool. jack@opensolaris:~$ pfexec su - root@opensolaris:~# hostname core2 root@core2:~# hostid 00041f55 root@core2:~# echo "hw_serial/v 32 38 34 38 33 35 38 39 32 0" | mdb -kw root@core2:~# hostid 10fa4034 root@core:~# zpool import rpool then eject the cdrom and reboot, it should work now... MRJ
> Ahh. I see. Not sure why I did not have it on that > setting at first. > > Now is there a way to get solaris to boot again? I''d > rather not re-install with this new bios setting if > there is a way to have solaris find my rpool now that > it is on a different device.Boot from the LiveCD (OpenSolaris) or boot the failsafe kernel (SX:CE), and from a root terminal (window) run "zpool import -f rpool". Reboot. That fixes the physical device paths in the zpool''s label. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
Thanks. I will give that a shot tonight. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org