Jeremy Blosser
2010-Apr-05 07:05 UTC
[Xen-users] vga passthrough status / probability of success?
I want to build a xen rig at home that primarily hosts domUs for servers and services, but also has one domU I can use for x/browsing/gaming that keeps it isolated from the services so load and general instability from that kind of use doesn''t impact anything else. I gather from a whole lot of googling the last few days that this is not an atypical question, though what may be atypical is that I''m not looking to run windows for the games, just another linux install with wine. I also gather from googling that this is pretty bleeding edge, but expected to be hitting mainline in 4.0. I am still not clear, however, if people are actually being successful at this or if there are particular hardware configurations known to work or that should be avoided. I see lots of questions like "does this board support vt-d" that eventually end in "yes" "no" or "maybe" based on manufacturer data and responses, but precious little actual stories of success once the hardware is together. The wiki page at http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenVGAPassthrough however makes it sound pretty straightforward, at least until one starts following the links at the end. I am a sysadmin/engineer who has run a whole lot of xen for $dayjob since the beginning of xen and I have been known to do some weird custom things with at least the network setups, so I''m not afraid to get my hands dirty and help the community figure this stuff out, but I''m not usually a developer and I don''t know that I want to spend the money and time for vt-d stuff if there''s little chance it''ll actually work right now except during the solstice or something. So, what are my odds at getting a good result with what''s out there right now, assuming I''m fairly competant? Is this at the stage it will kill my pets and laugh at me, or is alpha that will work if I wave a dead chicken, or beta that mostly works with some caveats, or other? Based on my research I''m looking at getting the i7-860 which intel definitely says has vt-d and the DP55KG which is not listed on http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/VTdHowTo but is reported several places (including the intel P55 spec sheets) as supporting vt-d; I assume it''s just too new to be on that wiki page? Should I be looking at something else specific? I''d rather save a little money with the 800 series vs going to 900 and socket 1366, but not if that''s going to likely fail to get to where I want. Graphics-wise I already have an nvidia 9500GT and a 9800GTX+ to pick from; I understand that nvidia may introduce some additional headaches here and the quadros are more "virtualization friendly" but I really don''t have that kind of money so I''m hoping there''s a chance with this one even if I have to patch for it. I see Mr. Teo En Ming''s video and such which indicate he got an 8400 GS working at least to some extent, but I don''t know what processor or board that''s with. Last, I''m really not clear on the status of keyboard/mouse for this kind of setup. I''m finding mixed messages in the posts out there, but I assume the ideal goal is to just passthrough an entire usb controller to the domU via pci passthrough? Is that working as it should? Thanks for the work and in advance for any responses. _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Ady Deac
2010-Apr-05 08:05 UTC
Re: [Xen-users] vga passthrough status / probability of success?
Hi, I have successfully setup an so-called multi-head Xen setup. The primary video adapter is being used by the dom0 to run a mythtv frontend, while a second adapter (nvidia) was assigned to a domU with a dom0 (privileged guest) kernel with PCI passtrough. It works great, even the hardware acceleration. I am using Debian testing''s Xen hypervisor. I have compiled the kernels myself, since I needed some other tweaks besides the default Debian''s kernel. I am using kernel 2.6.33 with xen patches found on google''s code here: http://code.google.com/p/gentoo-xen-kernel/downloads/list?can=1&q=&colspec=Filename+Summary+Uploaded+Size+DownloadCount Not sure why it is deprecated? I can confirm it is running smoothly on my computer. I am using the domU as my primary working station. I use around 16h a day. It is actually running 24/7. the VGA passtrough should only be another thing you could loose about two or three weeks on it, with lots of debugging and email back and forth. Not sure if it really pays all that stuff? My system setup: MB GIGABYTE G33M-S2, Intel G33, s.775, FSB 1333, video, LAN, 4xSATA 2, 1xPCI-E(x16), 1xPCI-E(x1), 2xPCI, 4xDDRII 800, mATX, audio 6ch, 12xUSB, G33M-S2 CPU Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200, 2333 MHz, Socket LGA775, 4096K, bus 1333, 0.045u, BOX, Quad CORE, ( Intel EM64T), BX80580Q8200 8GB RAM Therefore, nothing "unusual" or "futuristic". Please let me know if you need further details. Regards, Adrian Jeremy Blosser wrote:> I want to build a xen rig at home that primarily hosts domUs for servers > and services, but also has one domU I can use for x/browsing/gaming that > keeps it isolated from the services so load and general instability from > that kind of use doesn''t impact anything else. I gather from a whole lot > of googling the last few days that this is not an atypical question, though > what may be atypical is that I''m not looking to run windows for the games, > just another linux install with wine. > > I also gather from googling that this is pretty bleeding edge, but expected > to be hitting mainline in 4.0. I am still not clear, however, if people > are actually being successful at this or if there are particular hardware > configurations known to work or that should be avoided. I see lots of > questions like "does this board support vt-d" that eventually end in "yes" > "no" or "maybe" based on manufacturer data and responses, but precious > little actual stories of success once the hardware is together. The wiki > page at http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenVGAPassthrough however makes > it sound pretty straightforward, at least until one starts following the > links at the end. > > I am a sysadmin/engineer who has run a whole lot of xen for $dayjob since > the beginning of xen and I have been known to do some weird custom things > with at least the network setups, so I''m not afraid to get my hands dirty > and help the community figure this stuff out, but I''m not usually a > developer and I don''t know that I want to spend the money and time for vt-d > stuff if there''s little chance it''ll actually work right now except during > the solstice or something. So, what are my odds at getting a good result > with what''s out there right now, assuming I''m fairly competant? Is this at > the stage it will kill my pets and laugh at me, or is alpha that will work > if I wave a dead chicken, or beta that mostly works with some caveats, or > other? > > Based on my research I''m looking at getting the i7-860 which intel > definitely says has vt-d and the DP55KG which is not listed on > http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/VTdHowTo but is reported several places > (including the intel P55 spec sheets) as supporting vt-d; I assume it''s > just too new to be on that wiki page? Should I be looking at something > else specific? I''d rather save a little money with the 800 series vs going > to 900 and socket 1366, but not if that''s going to likely fail to get to > where I want. > > Graphics-wise I already have an nvidia 9500GT and a 9800GTX+ to pick from; > I understand that nvidia may introduce some additional headaches here and > the quadros are more "virtualization friendly" but I really don''t have that > kind of money so I''m hoping there''s a chance with this one even if I have > to patch for it. I see Mr. Teo En Ming''s video and such which indicate he > got an 8400 GS working at least to some extent, but I don''t know what > processor or board that''s with. > > Last, I''m really not clear on the status of keyboard/mouse for this kind of > setup. I''m finding mixed messages in the posts out there, but I assume the > ideal goal is to just passthrough an entire usb controller to the domU via > pci passthrough? Is that working as it should? > > Thanks for the work and in advance for any responses. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Xen-users mailing list > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users >-- Deac Mihai-Adrian W: www.mikesoftware.com P: +40-745-256.364 _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Jeremy Blosser
2010-Apr-05 13:03 UTC
Re: [Xen-users] vga passthrough status / probability of success?
On Apr 05, Ady Deac [ady@mikesnet.ro] wrote:> Hi, > > I have successfully setup an so-called multi-head Xen setup. The primary > video adapter is being used by the dom0 to run a mythtv frontend, while > a second adapter (nvidia) was assigned to a domU with a dom0 (privileged > guest) kernel with PCI passtrough. It works great, even the hardware > acceleration. > ... > Not sure why it is deprecated? I can confirm it is running smoothly on > my computer.What are you doing to get that kind of passthrough in current xen? Are you at least doing hvm or is that with a paravirtualized guest?? Thanks. Still hoping to hear from others on the upcoming stuff as well, I would like to get this stuff ordered ASAP to replace failing other hardware. _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Ady Deac
2010-Apr-06 05:35 UTC
Re: [Xen-users] vga passthrough status / probability of success?
Hi Jeremy, I am not doing HVM. Actually, I''m not sure if it will work with that. I am simply doing paravirtualization. It''s all I need, actually. What hardware do you have failing? Regards, Adrian Jeremy Blosser wrote:> On Apr 05, Ady Deac [ady@mikesnet.ro] wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> I have successfully setup an so-called multi-head Xen setup. The primary >> video adapter is being used by the dom0 to run a mythtv frontend, while >> a second adapter (nvidia) was assigned to a domU with a dom0 (privileged >> guest) kernel with PCI passtrough. It works great, even the hardware >> acceleration. >> ... >> Not sure why it is deprecated? I can confirm it is running smoothly on >> my computer. >> > > What are you doing to get that kind of passthrough in current xen? Are > you at least doing hvm or is that with a paravirtualized guest?? > > Thanks. > > Still hoping to hear from others on the upcoming stuff as well, I would > like to get this stuff ordered ASAP to replace failing other hardware. > > _______________________________________________ > Xen-users mailing list > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users >-- Deac Mihai-Adrian W: www.mikesoftware.com P: +40-745-256.364 _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Jeremy Blosser
2010-Apr-06 06:07 UTC
Re: [Xen-users] vga passthrough status / probability of success?
On Apr 06, Ady Deac [ady@mikesnet.ro] wrote:> Hi Jeremy, > > I am not doing HVM. Actually, I''m not sure if it will work with that. I > am simply doing paravirtualization. It''s all I need, actually.So you''re just doing pv pci passthrough with graphics and it''s working fine with acceleration/etc.?> What hardware do you have failing?Drives and boards in old home server equipment. Building a new one, shopping for parts that get to what I want. _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Ady Deac
2010-Apr-07 05:45 UTC
Re: [Xen-users] vga passthrough status / probability of success?
Hi Jeremy, Jeremy Blosser wrote:> On Apr 06, Ady Deac [ady@mikesnet.ro] wrote: > >> Hi Jeremy, >> >> I am not doing HVM. Actually, I''m not sure if it will work with that. I >> am simply doing paravirtualization. It''s all I need, actually. >> > > So you''re just doing pv pci passthrough with graphics and it''s working > fine with acceleration/etc.? >Yeap! Easy, isn''t it?> >> What hardware do you have failing? >> > > Drives and boards in old home server equipment. Building a new one, > shopping for parts that get to what I want. >Oh, sorry to hear that. I''d suggest you get at least a VT enabled CPU (check out AMD''s CPUs, they all have that enabled by default). If the computer is going to run 24/7, I''d suggest you go for a greener CPU. I''ve checked a lot of benchmarks and found out that Intels will be greener and cooler and most competitive when it comes to performance. But those are pricey when it comes to VT. Therefore, I''d stick with the 65W AMD Phenom II 905e. I''m not sure how the mobo will affect Xen''s features, therefore I recommend you ask the guys here?> _______________________________________________ > Xen-users mailing list > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users >-- Deac Mihai-Adrian W: www.mikesoftware.com P: +40-745-256.364 _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users