I''m using Centos 5 dom0 on an x86_64 machine with 12GB of RAM. Tried to use virt-manager to install a Centos 4 domU (also tried with Centos 5 domU) but the tool limits the disk to 16000 MB. So switch to using virt-install and specified an 80GB disk. Everything proceed well until "Formatting / file system" which stops at 11% (~8GB of the 74GB / partition). Are there hard limits here that I''m missing? Thank you, Tarun Rally Software
On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:16:44 -0600 Tarun Reddy <treddy@rallydev.com> wrote:> I''m using Centos 5 dom0 on an x86_64 machine with 12GB of RAM. > > Tried to use virt-manager to install a Centos 4 domU (also tried with > Centos 5 domU) but the tool limits the disk to 16000 MB. So switch to > using virt-install and specified an 80GB disk. Everything proceed > well until "Formatting / file system" which stops at 11% (~8GB of the > 74GB / partition).Seems likely it might be the same bug as: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=234160 If you look at the VM you are trying to install in the virt-manager app, is it using as much CPU as it can get?
On Jun 12, 2007, at 4:56 PM, Tom Horsley wrote:> On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:16:44 -0600 > Tarun Reddy <treddy@rallydev.com> wrote: > >> I''m using Centos 5 dom0 on an x86_64 machine with 12GB of RAM. >> >> Tried to use virt-manager to install a Centos 4 domU (also tried with >> Centos 5 domU) but the tool limits the disk to 16000 MB. So switch to >> using virt-install and specified an 80GB disk. Everything proceed >> well until "Formatting / file system" which stops at 11% (~8GB of the >> 74GB / partition). > > Seems likely it might be the same bug as: > > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=234160 > > If you look at the VM you are trying to install in the virt-manager > app, is it using as much CPU as it can get? >Thank you for the pointer! The load on the host shows 1 x number of guest hosts during those pauses. It did eventually finish the install but it took almost 2 hours with a local Centos mirror! So looking at the bugzilla report, I noticed I didn''t mention that I was using paravirtualized guest domains. Of course, the bug in bugzilla originally references fully virtualized guests. So, on a whim, I try a Centos 4.5 guest os fully virtualized. Apart from having to add noapic to my kernel boot line, it seems much more stable with no pauses at all. Go figure. I was hoping to use a paravirtualized since I thought it might be faster. Of course on a 32 bit Intel box (older Xeons), I have no issues with paravirtualized hosts, either Centos 5 or 4.5. Baffled, Tarun
On Jun 12, 2007, at 8:08 PM, Tarun Reddy wrote:> > On Jun 12, 2007, at 4:56 PM, Tom Horsley wrote: > >> On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:16:44 -0600 >> Tarun Reddy <treddy@rallydev.com> wrote: >> >>> I''m using Centos 5 dom0 on an x86_64 machine with 12GB of RAM. >>> >>> Tried to use virt-manager to install a Centos 4 domU (also tried >>> with >>> Centos 5 domU) but the tool limits the disk to 16000 MB. So >>> switch to >>> using virt-install and specified an 80GB disk. Everything proceed >>> well until "Formatting / file system" which stops at 11% (~8GB of >>> the >>> 74GB / partition). >> >> Seems likely it might be the same bug as: >> >> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=234160 >> >> If you look at the VM you are trying to install in the virt-manager >> app, is it using as much CPU as it can get? >> > Thank you for the pointer! The load on the host shows 1 x number of > guest hosts during those pauses. It did eventually finish the > install but it took almost 2 hours with a local Centos mirror! > > So looking at the bugzilla report, I noticed I didn''t mention that > I was using paravirtualized guest domains. Of course, the bug in > bugzilla originally references fully virtualized guests. So, on a > whim, I try a Centos 4.5 guest os fully virtualized. Apart from > having to add noapic to my kernel boot line, it seems much more > stable with no pauses at all. Go figure. > > I was hoping to use a paravirtualized since I thought it might be > faster. > > Of course on a 32 bit Intel box (older Xeons), I have no issues > with paravirtualized hosts, either Centos 5 or 4.5. >Less baffled now. The difference between the pause state and non-paused state is *not* para versus fully virtualized systems as I thought. Rather it was sparse versus non-sparse disk images. I had started using virt-install since I couldn''t get virt-manager to set up a disk image bigger that 16GB. By default virt-install uses sparse disks (versus virt-manager which defaults to non-sparse disks). Hence, the dramatic pauses that involved anything large I/O to the disk. Fortunately, there are nice command line switches that allow changing of that and I am now running paravirtualized Centos 5 guest without pauses (Centos 4.5 installing as we speak). Thanks for your help! Tarun