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Jatin Davey

2015-Apr-14 12:33 UTC

Re: [libvirt-users] VM Performance using KVM Vs. VMware ESXi

Thanks Dominique & Daniel.

Looks like i need to upgrade my VMs kernel to make it aware of virtio.

Found this information from this link:

http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/Virtio#Disk_.28block.29_device_driver

I tried without upgrading the Kernel and as soon as i start my VM it got 
into Kernel Panic. I will try using virtio after upgrading my VMs kernel.

Thanks for all the responses and pointers.

Thanks
Jatin

On 4/14/2015 5:08 PM, Dominique Ramaekers wrote:> Please read: https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html
>
>
> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: Jatin Davey [mailto:jashokda@cisco.com]
> Verzonden: dinsdag 14 april 2015 13:39
> Aan: Daniel P. Berrange
> CC: Dominique Ramaekers; libvirt-users@redhat.com
> Onderwerp: Re: [libvirt-users] VM Performance using KVM Vs. VMware ESXi
>
> On 4/14/2015 4:58 PM, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
>> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 04:53:52PM +0530, Jatin Davey wrote:
>>> On 4/14/2015 4:42 PM, Dominique Ramaekers wrote:
>>>> About Spice: I think it’s good practice to use spice because it
>>>> improves the performance of the VM in general by improving
screen
>>>> performance. If your VM is constantly displaying output, you’ll
>>>> probably will notice a difference.
>>>>
>>> [Jatin] Ok, This is not my concern as of now. I will take a look at
>>> it sometime later.
>>>> About virtio: You can see it in the settings. Better yet, it’s
in
>>>> your XML. If you post your XML, we can take a look…
>>>>
>>> Here is the xml associated with my VM:
>>>
>>> ********************************
>>> <domain type='kvm'>
>>>     <devices>
>>>       <emulator>/usr/libexec/qemu-kvm</emulator>
>>>       <disk type='file' device='disk'>
>>>         <driver name='qemu' type='qcow2'
cache='none'/>
>>>         <source
file='/var/lib/libvirt/images/****.qcow2'/>
>>>         <target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
>>>         <address type='drive' controller='0'
bus='0' target='0' unit='0'/>
>>>       </disk>
>> This disk is configured to use IDE, so performance of anything that
>> does disk I/O is going to be terrible. You really want to be using
virtio.
>>
>>>      <interface type='bridge'>
>>>        <mac address='52:54:00:c9:58:c9'/>
>>>        <source bridge='br332'/>
>>>        <address type='pci' domain='0x0000'
bus='0x00' slot='0x03' function='0x0'/>
>>>       </interface>
>> This doesn't have any model listed at all, so it will be falling
back
>> to a generic emulated NIC. Again performance of this is likely going
>> to be terrible for anything doing network I/O. You want to be using
>> virtio for this too.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Daniel
> How do i make use of virtio for the both disk and network that you have
mentioned above ?
> Any pointers to it would be helpful.
>
> Thanks
> Jatin

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  <head>
    <meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8"
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  <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
    <font face="Times New Roman">Thanks Dominique &amp;
Daniel.<br>
      <br>
      Looks like i need to upgrade my VMs kernel to make it aware of
      virtio.<br>
      <br>
      Found this information from this link:<br>
      <br>
      <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/Virtio#Disk_.28block.29_device_driver">http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/Virtio#Disk_.28block.29_device_driver</a><br>
      <br>
      I tried without upgrading the Kernel and as soon as i start my VM
      it got into Kernel Panic. I will try using virtio after upgrading
      my VMs kernel.<br>
      <br>
      Thanks for all the responses and pointers.<br>
      <br>
      Thanks<br>
      Jatin<br>
    </font><br>
    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/14/2015 5:08 PM, Dominique
      Ramaekers wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote
     
cite="mid:5CFBD7F4A5E6214CAAA69C03E2E1CD195451BB4E04@cmsrv5.cometal.be"
      type="cite">
      <pre wrap="">Please read: <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html">https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html</a>


-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Jatin Davey [<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="mailto:jashokda@cisco.com">mailto:jashokda@cisco.com</a>]
Verzonden: dinsdag 14 april 2015 13:39
Aan: Daniel P. Berrange
CC: Dominique Ramaekers; <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:libvirt-users@redhat.com">libvirt-users@redhat.com</a>
Onderwerp: Re: [libvirt-users] VM Performance using KVM Vs. VMware ESXi

On 4/14/2015 4:58 PM, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
</pre>
      <blockquote type="cite">
        <pre wrap="">On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 04:53:52PM +0530,
Jatin Davey wrote:
</pre>
        <blockquote type="cite">
          <pre wrap="">On 4/14/2015 4:42 PM, Dominique Ramaekers
wrote:
</pre>
          <blockquote type="cite">
            <pre wrap="">About Spice: I think it’s good practice
to use spice because it
improves the performance of the VM in general by improving screen 
performance. If your VM is constantly displaying output, you’ll 
probably will notice a difference.

</pre>
          </blockquote>
          <pre wrap="">[Jatin] Ok, This is not my concern as of
now. I will take a look at
it sometime later.
</pre>
          <blockquote type="cite">
            <pre wrap="">About virtio: You can see it in the
settings. Better yet, it’s in
your XML. If you post your XML, we can take a look…

</pre>
          </blockquote>
          <pre wrap="">Here is the xml associated with my VM:

********************************
&lt;domain type='kvm'&gt;
   &lt;devices&gt;
     &lt;emulator&gt;/usr/libexec/qemu-kvm&lt;/emulator&gt;
     &lt;disk type='file' device='disk'&gt;
       &lt;driver name='qemu' type='qcow2'
cache='none'/&gt;
       &lt;source file='/var/lib/libvirt/images/****.qcow2'/&gt;
       &lt;target dev='hda' bus='ide'/&gt;
       &lt;address type='drive' controller='0'
bus='0' target='0' unit='0'/&gt;
     &lt;/disk&gt;
</pre>
        </blockquote>
        <pre wrap="">This disk is configured to use IDE, so
performance of anything that
does disk I/O is going to be terrible. You really want to be using virtio.

</pre>
        <blockquote type="cite">
          <pre wrap="">    &lt;interface
type='bridge'&gt;
      &lt;mac address='52:54:00:c9:58:c9'/&gt;
      &lt;source bridge='br332'/&gt;
      &lt;address type='pci' domain='0x0000'
bus='0x00' slot='0x03' function='0x0'/&gt;
     &lt;/interface&gt;
</pre>
        </blockquote>
        <pre wrap="">This doesn't have any model listed at
all, so it will be falling back
to a generic emulated NIC. Again performance of this is likely going 
to be terrible for anything doing network I/O. You want to be using 
virtio for this too.

Regards,
Daniel
</pre>
      </blockquote>
      <pre wrap="">How do i make use of virtio for the both disk
and network that you have mentioned above ?
Any pointers to it would be helpful.

Thanks
Jatin
</pre>
    </blockquote>
    <br>
  </body>
</html>

--------------080300030508050503090808--

Sven Schwedas

2015-Apr-14 12:50 UTC

head link

Re: [libvirt-users] VM Performance using KVM Vs. VMware ESXi

On 2015-04-14 14:33, Jatin Davey wrote:> Thanks Dominique & Daniel.
> 
> Looks like i need to upgrade my VMs kernel to make it aware of virtio.
Unless their kernels are very old, you only need to rebuild your initrd
as documented in the wiki (or similarly for other distributions).
> 
> Found this information from this link:
> 
> http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/Virtio#Disk_.28block.29_device_driver
> 
> I tried without upgrading the Kernel and as soon as i start my VM it got
> into Kernel Panic. I will try using virtio after upgrading my VMs kernel.
> 
> Thanks for all the responses and pointers.
> 
> Thanks
> Jatin
> 
> On 4/14/2015 5:08 PM, Dominique Ramaekers wrote:
>> Please read: https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html
>>
>>
>> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
>> Van: Jatin Davey [mailto:jashokda@cisco.com] 
>> Verzonden: dinsdag 14 april 2015 13:39
>> Aan: Daniel P. Berrange
>> CC: Dominique Ramaekers; libvirt-users@redhat.com
>> Onderwerp: Re: [libvirt-users] VM Performance using KVM Vs. VMware ESXi
>>
>> On 4/14/2015 4:58 PM, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
>>> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 04:53:52PM +0530, Jatin Davey wrote:
>>>> On 4/14/2015 4:42 PM, Dominique Ramaekers wrote:
>>>>> About Spice: I think it’s good practice to use spice
because it
>>>>> improves the performance of the VM in general by improving
screen
>>>>> performance. If your VM is constantly displaying output,
you’ll
>>>>> probably will notice a difference.
>>>>>
>>>> [Jatin] Ok, This is not my concern as of now. I will take a
look at
>>>> it sometime later.
>>>>> About virtio: You can see it in the settings. Better yet,
it’s in
>>>>> your XML. If you post your XML, we can take a look…
>>>>>
>>>> Here is the xml associated with my VM:
>>>>
>>>> ********************************
>>>> <domain type='kvm'>
>>>>    <devices>
>>>>      <emulator>/usr/libexec/qemu-kvm</emulator>
>>>>      <disk type='file' device='disk'>
>>>>        <driver name='qemu' type='qcow2'
cache='none'/>
>>>>        <source
file='/var/lib/libvirt/images/****.qcow2'/>
>>>>        <target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
>>>>        <address type='drive' controller='0'
bus='0' target='0' unit='0'/>
>>>>      </disk>
>>> This disk is configured to use IDE, so performance of anything that
>>> does disk I/O is going to be terrible. You really want to be using
virtio.
>>>
>>>>     <interface type='bridge'>
>>>>       <mac address='52:54:00:c9:58:c9'/>
>>>>       <source bridge='br332'/>
>>>>       <address type='pci' domain='0x0000'
bus='0x00' slot='0x03' function='0x0'/>
>>>>      </interface>
>>> This doesn't have any model listed at all, so it will be
falling back
>>> to a generic emulated NIC. Again performance of this is likely
going
>>> to be terrible for anything doing network I/O. You want to be using
>>> virtio for this too.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Daniel
>> How do i make use of virtio for the both disk and network that you have
mentioned above ?
>> Any pointers to it would be helpful.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Jatin
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> libvirt-users mailing list
> libvirt-users@redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libvirt-users
> 
-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen, / Best Regards,
Sven Schwedas
Systemadministrator
TAO Beratungs- und Management GmbH | Lendplatz 45 | A - 8020 Graz
Mail/XMPP: sven.schwedas@tao.at | +43 (0)680 301 7167
http://software.tao.at

Tom Hughes

2015-Apr-14 13:02 UTC

head link

Re: [libvirt-users] VM Performance using KVM Vs. VMware ESXi

On 14/04/15 13:33, Jatin Davey wrote:
> Thanks Dominique & Daniel.
>
> Looks like i need to upgrade my VMs kernel to make it aware of virtio.
>
> Found this information from this link:
>
> http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/Virtio#Disk_.28block.29_device_driver
>
> I tried without upgrading the Kernel and as soon as i start my VM it got
> into Kernel Panic. I will try using virtio after upgrading my VMs kernel.
As somebody has already said it would have to be a really old kernel to 
not handle virtio-block, and it's more likely that your bootloader 
and/or initrd are confused by sda becoming vda.

However if your kernel supports it then virtio-scsi should be even 
better than virtio-block and shouldn't cause the device name to change.

Tom

-- 
Tom Hughes (tom@compton.nu)
http://compton.nu/

Jatin Davey

2015-Apr-14 13:16 UTC

head link

Re: [libvirt-users] VM Performance using KVM Vs. VMware ESXi

On 4/14/2015 6:32 PM, Tom Hughes wrote:> On 14/04/15 13:33, Jatin Davey wrote:
>
>> Thanks Dominique & Daniel.
>>
>> Looks like i need to upgrade my VMs kernel to make it aware of virtio.
>>
>> Found this information from this link:
>>
>> http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/Virtio#Disk_.28block.29_device_driver
>>
>> I tried without upgrading the Kernel and as soon as i start my VM it
got
>> into Kernel Panic. I will try using virtio after upgrading my VMs 
>> kernel.
>
> As somebody has already said it would have to be a really old kernel 
> to not handle virtio-block, and it's more likely that your bootloader 
> and/or initrd are confused by sda becoming vda.
>
> However if your kernel supports it then virtio-scsi should be even 
> better than virtio-block and shouldn't cause the device name to change.
>
> Tom
>My VM is using the kernel 2.6.18-164.el5

[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

Should this be fine ?

Thanks
Jatin

Matt Schumacher

2015-Apr-14 16:18 UTC

head link

Re: [libvirt-users] VM Performance using KVM Vs. VMware ESXi

Jatin,

Using qemu without the virtio scsi and nic drivers is like running 
vmware with ide disks and e1000 nic instead of LSI disks and vmxnet3 
nics, it forces the system to emulate completely different hardware.

In linux the virtio drivers are implemented in the kernel, so you either 
need a new kernel or the virtio kernel modules.  I'm not sure which for 
RHEL5, but I suspect you can get what you need with the kmod-virtio 
package, then rebuilding the initrd image to load the modules at boot.

Keep in mind that sda will change to vda, which on some linux distros 
requires updates to the bootloader and inittab, but redhat uses 
filesystem labels if I remember correctly, so it should just work.

Please let us know how the benchmarks look after you get virtio working, 
I'm curious...

schu


On 4/14/2015 5:33 AM, Jatin Davey wrote:> Thanks Dominique & Daniel.
>
> Looks like i need to upgrade my VMs kernel to make it aware of virtio.
>
> Found this information from this link:
>
> http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/Virtio#Disk_.28block.29_device_driver
>
> I tried without upgrading the Kernel and as soon as i start my VM it 
> got into Kernel Panic. I will try using virtio after upgrading my VMs 
> kernel.
>
> Thanks for all the responses and pointers.
>
> Thanks
> Jatin
>
> On 4/14/2015 5:08 PM, Dominique Ramaekers wrote:
>> Please read:https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html
>>
>>
>> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
>> Van: Jatin Davey [mailto:jashokda@cisco.com]
>> Verzonden: dinsdag 14 april 2015 13:39
>> Aan: Daniel P. Berrange
>> CC: Dominique Ramaekers;libvirt-users@redhat.com
>> Onderwerp: Re: [libvirt-users] VM Performance using KVM Vs. VMware ESXi
>>
>> On 4/14/2015 4:58 PM, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
>>> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 04:53:52PM +0530, Jatin Davey wrote:
>>>> On 4/14/2015 4:42 PM, Dominique Ramaekers wrote:
>>>>> About Spice: I think it's good practice to use spice
because it
>>>>> improves the performance of the VM in general by improving
screen
>>>>> performance. If your VM is constantly displaying output,
you'll
>>>>> probably will notice a difference.
>>>>>
>>>> [Jatin] Ok, This is not my concern as of now. I will take a
look at
>>>> it sometime later.
>>>>> About virtio: You can see it in the settings. Better yet,
it's in
>>>>> your XML. If you post your XML, we can take a look...
>>>>>
>>>> Here is the xml associated with my VM:
>>>>
>>>> ********************************
>>>> <domain type='kvm'>
>>>>     <devices>
>>>>       <emulator>/usr/libexec/qemu-kvm</emulator>
>>>>       <disk type='file' device='disk'>
>>>>         <driver name='qemu' type='qcow2'
cache='none'/>
>>>>         <source
file='/var/lib/libvirt/images/****.qcow2'/>
>>>>         <target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
>>>>         <address type='drive' controller='0'
bus='0' target='0' unit='0'/>
>>>>       </disk>
>>> This disk is configured to use IDE, so performance of anything that
>>> does disk I/O is going to be terrible. You really want to be using
virtio.
>>>
>>>>      <interface type='bridge'>
>>>>        <mac address='52:54:00:c9:58:c9'/>
>>>>        <source bridge='br332'/>
>>>>        <address type='pci' domain='0x0000'
bus='0x00' slot='0x03' function='0x0'/>
>>>>       </interface>
>>> This doesn't have any model listed at all, so it will be
falling back
>>> to a generic emulated NIC. Again performance of this is likely
going
>>> to be terrible for anything doing network I/O. You want to be using
>>> virtio for this too.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Daniel
>> How do i make use of virtio for the both disk and network that you have
mentioned above ?
>> Any pointers to it would be helpful.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Jatin
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> libvirt-users mailing list
> libvirt-users@redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libvirt-users

Nikki VonHollen

2015-Apr-14 20:51 UTC

head link

Re: [libvirt-users] VM Performance using KVM Vs. VMware ESXi

Hi Jatin,

The RedHat documentation on this is extremely helpful. It's so helpful that
I use it as a reference on completely different distributions.

VMWare does a pretty good job of guiding you and giving you defaults that
are sensible. With Libvirt/QEMU/KVM, you need to get an idea of those and
enable them yourself.

For example, I see that you are using qcow2 files, but if you don't need
the features it provides, then using block devices (usually logical volumes
in a volume group) directly for VM disks may be significantly faster. It
also depends on how caching is configured. The manuals will step you
through all of that. Pay special attention to storage, because it's the
first bottleneck a lot of applications hit.

Check out the manuals under the virtualization section here:
https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/

Specifically:
https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/Virtualization_Tuning_and_Optimization_Guide/index.html

Good luck!
Nikki


On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 9:18 AM, Matt Schumacher <matt.s@aptalaska.com>
wrote:
>  Jatin,
>
> Using qemu without the virtio scsi and nic drivers is like running vmware
> with ide disks and e1000 nic instead of LSI disks and vmxnet3 nics, it
> forces the system to emulate completely different hardware.
>
> In linux the virtio drivers are implemented in the kernel, so you either
> need a new kernel or the virtio kernel modules.  I'm not sure which for
> RHEL5, but I suspect you can get what you need with the kmod-virtio
> package, then rebuilding the initrd image to load the modules at boot.
>
> Keep in mind that sda will change to vda, which on some linux distros
> requires updates to the bootloader and inittab, but redhat uses filesystem
> labels if I remember correctly, so it should just work.
>
> Please let us know how the benchmarks look after you get virtio working,
> I'm curious...
>
> schu
>
>
>
> On 4/14/2015 5:33 AM, Jatin Davey wrote:
>
> Thanks Dominique & Daniel.
>
> Looks like i need to upgrade my VMs kernel to make it aware of virtio.
>
> Found this information from this link:
>
> http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/Virtio#Disk_.28block.29_device_driver
>
> I tried without upgrading the Kernel and as soon as i start my VM it got
> into Kernel Panic. I will try using virtio after upgrading my VMs kernel.
>
> Thanks for all the responses and pointers.
>
> Thanks
> Jatin
>
> On 4/14/2015 5:08 PM, Dominique Ramaekers wrote:
>
> Please read: https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html
>
>
> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: Jatin Davey [mailto:jashokda@cisco.com <jashokda@cisco.com>]
> Verzonden: dinsdag 14 april 2015 13:39
> Aan: Daniel P. Berrange
> CC: Dominique Ramaekers; libvirt-users@redhat.com
> Onderwerp: Re: [libvirt-users] VM Performance using KVM Vs. VMware ESXi
>
> On 4/14/2015 4:58 PM, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
>
>  On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 04:53:52PM +0530, Jatin Davey wrote:
>
>  On 4/14/2015 4:42 PM, Dominique Ramaekers wrote:
>
>  About Spice: I think it’s good practice to use spice because it
> improves the performance of the VM in general by improving screen
> performance. If your VM is constantly displaying output, you’ll
> probably will notice a difference.
>
>
>  [Jatin] Ok, This is not my concern as of now. I will take a look at
> it sometime later.
>
>  About virtio: You can see it in the settings. Better yet, it’s in
> your XML. If you post your XML, we can take a look…
>
>
>  Here is the xml associated with my VM:
>
> ********************************
> <domain type='kvm'>
>    <devices>
>      <emulator>/usr/libexec/qemu-kvm</emulator>
>      <disk type='file' device='disk'>
>        <driver name='qemu' type='qcow2'
cache='none'/>
>        <source file='/var/lib/libvirt/images/****.qcow2'/>
>        <target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
>        <address type='drive' controller='0'
bus='0' target='0' unit='0'/>
>      </disk>
>
>  This disk is configured to use IDE, so performance of anything that
> does disk I/O is going to be terrible. You really want to be using virtio.
>
>
>      <interface type='bridge'>
>       <mac address='52:54:00:c9:58:c9'/>
>       <source bridge='br332'/>
>       <address type='pci' domain='0x0000'
bus='0x00' slot='0x03' function='0x0'/>
>      </interface>
>
>  This doesn't have any model listed at all, so it will be falling back
> to a generic emulated NIC. Again performance of this is likely going
> to be terrible for anything doing network I/O. You want to be using
> virtio for this too.
>
> Regards,
> Daniel
>
>  How do i make use of virtio for the both disk and network that you have
mentioned above ?
> Any pointers to it would be helpful.
>
> Thanks
> Jatin
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> libvirt-users mailing
listlibvirt-users@redhat.comhttps://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libvirt-users
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> libvirt-users mailing list
> libvirt-users@redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libvirt-users
>


-- 
Nikki VonHollen
Goobuntu Team <https://goto.google.com/goobuntu>
540-553-1904

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