adam_richter2004@yahoo.com
2009-Jun-19 02:34 UTC
[Xen-users] Xen linux-2.6.18 on Intel dx58so motherboard?
At the outset, I would like to thank Tim Moore for posting his evidently
successful experiences with trying to get PCI passthrough working on Xen with an
Intel dx58so motherboard in April at
http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-devel/2009-04/msg00399.html .
Based on Tim''s information about the dx58so mostly working, I also
switched my Intel Core i7 motherboard from an ASUS p6t to the Intel dx58so to
get xen-3.4 to enable support for the IO memory management unit
("VT-d"), which I understand is currently necessary for Xen to support
PCI passthrough.
The discussion in the thread started by Tim''s posting indicates that it
was necessary to use the linux-2.6.18 version of the Linux domain 0 patches in
order to have the pciback driver needed for domain 0 to give PCI devices to
other virtual machines, and that appears to still be true today.
Unfortunately, when I try to boot the 2.6.18 kernel, it does not seem to see my
SATA disks when they are connected to the motherboard, or to an PCI card using
an InitIO chip or when I use an IDE disk connected by a PCI card using a Silicon
Image chip. In comparison, booting Jeremy Fitzhardinge''s
linux-2.6.30-rc6 kernel that he maintains in git works fine.
Tim mentioned in his posting "Support for this chipset in 2.6.18 is not
very good", so I suspect that he may have had to add some PCI ID''s
or make some other changes the 2.6.18 kernel that comes with Xen.
So I would like to ask if anybody out there is running Xen 3.4/linux-2.6.18.8
for domain 0 on an Intel dx58so motherboard and would be inclined to describe
any modifications that they had to make to the 2.6.18.8 sources included in
Xen-3.4 to make it boot and find their root filesystem (when I think it gets to
the initial ramdisk, gives me a blank screen, and then prints "Failed to
obtain physical IRQ 1" whenever I press a key on the USB keyboard).
That said, I would not recommend that anyone make a huge effort to answer my
question, as I think I will need to try to switch to the xci ("Xen Client
Initiative") version of Xen anyhow.
Anyhow, thanks in advance to anyone who answers. I would be happy to test
things on this motherboard if that would be helpful.
Adam Richter
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