I''ve got a DL145g3 which is reporting svm support in /proc/cpuinfo: processor : 0 vendor_id : AuthenticAMD cpu family : 15 model : 65 model name : Dual-Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 2214 HE stepping : 2 cpu MHz : 2200.000 cache size : 1024 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 2 core id : 0 cpu cores : 2 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 1 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni cx16 lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy bogomips : 4392.83 TLB size : 1024 4K pages clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: ts fid vid ttp tm stc but in "xm dmesg" i''m getting: (XEN) AMD SVM Extension is disabled in BIOS. I went through the trouble of commenting out the check in the xen kernel for the bios disable flag and basically lie to xen and it panics horribly on boot. I''ve also flashed the bios to the latest version from the hp site as of today and gone through it hunting for anything to do with virtualization, but can''t find an option there. I''ve also had someone else look for the option and he failed to find it as well. At this point have I conclusively determined that the problem lies in HP''s BIOS and not having anything to do with Xen? _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Stephan Seitz
2008-Jan-12 16:45 UTC
Re: [Xen-users] HP Proliant DL145g3, xen-3.1.0 and SVM
> (XEN) AMD SVM Extension is disabled in BIOS. > > I went through the trouble of commenting out the check in the xen kernel > for the bios disable flag and basically lie to xen and it panics > horribly on boot.As expected. You can''t paint a traffic light green and expect not to crash ;)> I''ve also flashed the bios to the latest version from the hp site as of > today and gone through it hunting for anything to do with > virtualization, but can''t find an option there. I''ve also had someone > else look for the option and he failed to find it as well. > > At this point have I conclusively determined that the problem lies in > HP''s BIOS and not having anything to do with Xen?I don''t know how the bios of this particular proliant model is setup, but an all recent x86 platforms i''ve seen so long, there is the need of turning on svm (amd) or vmx (intel) at the bios. I''ve never had problems with supermicro or tyan, but there have been discussions on the list which generally shows that if there''s no bios option, there''s no svm/vmx at all.> > _______________________________________________ > Xen-users mailing list > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users-- Stephan Seitz Senior System Administrator *netz-haut* e.K. multimediale kommunikation zweierweg 22 97074 würzburg fon: +49 931 2876247 fax: +49 931 2876248 web: www.netz-haut.de <http://www.netz-haut.de/> registriergericht: amtsgericht würzburg, hra 5054 _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Lamont Granquist
2008-Jan-14 19:10 UTC
Re: [Xen-users] HP Proliant DL145g3, xen-3.1.0 and SVM
On Sat, 12 Jan 2008, Stephan Seitz wrote:>> (XEN) AMD SVM Extension is disabled in BIOS. >> >> I went through the trouble of commenting out the check in the xen kernel >> for the bios disable flag and basically lie to xen and it panics >> horribly on boot. > > As expected. You can''t paint a traffic light green and expect not to crash ;) > >> I''ve also flashed the bios to the latest version from the hp site as of >> today and gone through it hunting for anything to do with >> virtualization, but can''t find an option there. I''ve also had someone >> else look for the option and he failed to find it as well. >> >> At this point have I conclusively determined that the problem lies in >> HP''s BIOS and not having anything to do with Xen? > > I don''t know how the bios of this particular proliant model is setup, but > an all recent x86 platforms i''ve seen so long, there is the need of turning > on svm (amd) or vmx (intel) at the bios. I''ve never had problems with > supermicro or tyan, but there have been discussions on the list which > generally shows that if there''s no bios option, there''s no svm/vmx at all.There were some previous discussions I found which seemed to be claiming that SVM always worked and that you didn''t need a BIOS option and that if it showed up /proc/cpuinfo it should just work. Hence, my test of painting the traffic light green to see if the cars would just magically avoid each other or not... Clearly, for both SVM and VMX the BIOS needs to support HVM and there should be a switch in the BIOS to enable/disable it. And the DL145g3 BIOS does not support SVM/HVM at this time. I''ve got a request into our vendor to pester HP about this issue and try to see if HP might have an internal beta BIOS which enables SVM... _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Lamont Granquist
2008-Jan-18 17:41 UTC
Re: [Xen-users] HP Proliant DL145g3, xen-3.1.0 and SVM
official word from hp is that "hp has intentially left amd-v disabled on the dl145 in order to maintain its status as a low-end system". apparently, the dl145g5 will have amd-v enabled in the future. however, in other words some marketing VP at HP made a decision that if you really want HVM you can''t buy a dl145 and have to spend more on a dl3xx. there''s not lot of reason for it -- i can understand not having the backup BIOS and online flash and other ''enterprise'' features on the dl145 since that really translates to cost savings -- but they''re just disabling the bit in the BIOS and not letting you have HVM... i don''t understand the suicidal behavior of marketing departments. i''m really not that dumb and can see right though this. at least HP does this much less often than Dell does... On Mon, 14 Jan 2008, Lamont Granquist wrote:> On Sat, 12 Jan 2008, Stephan Seitz wrote: >>> (XEN) AMD SVM Extension is disabled in BIOS. >>> >>> I went through the trouble of commenting out the check in the xen kernel >>> for the bios disable flag and basically lie to xen and it panics >>> horribly on boot. >> >> As expected. You can''t paint a traffic light green and expect not to crash >> ;) >> >>> I''ve also flashed the bios to the latest version from the hp site as of >>> today and gone through it hunting for anything to do with >>> virtualization, but can''t find an option there. I''ve also had someone >>> else look for the option and he failed to find it as well. >>> >>> At this point have I conclusively determined that the problem lies in >>> HP''s BIOS and not having anything to do with Xen? >> >> I don''t know how the bios of this particular proliant model is setup, but >> an all recent x86 platforms i''ve seen so long, there is the need of >> turning >> on svm (amd) or vmx (intel) at the bios. I''ve never had problems with >> supermicro or tyan, but there have been discussions on the list which >> generally shows that if there''s no bios option, there''s no svm/vmx at all. > > There were some previous discussions I found which seemed to be claiming that > SVM always worked and that you didn''t need a BIOS option and that if it > showed up /proc/cpuinfo it should just work. Hence, my test of painting the > traffic light green to see if the cars would just magically avoid each other > or not... > > Clearly, for both SVM and VMX the BIOS needs to support HVM and there should > be a switch in the BIOS to enable/disable it. And the DL145g3 BIOS does not > support SVM/HVM at this time. > > I''ve got a request into our vendor to pester HP about this issue and try to > see if HP might have an internal beta BIOS which enables SVM... > > _______________________________________________ > Xen-users mailing list > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users >_______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users