Xen users - Jan 2014 - Reporting success with VGA Passthrough, and some other question/issues, mainly with Audio

New year, new Xen goals.


After trying unsuccessfully to boot Xen in UEFI mode in this Thread:
http://lists.xen.org/archives/html/xen-users/2013-12/threads.html#00050
I have decided to skip that for now and use Xen with legacy BIOS, as I
desperately needed a proper production machine, at least until someone can help
me to figure out what isn't working. I have the time, but not the tools or
knowledge of both Linux and Xen to press on that without someone telling me what
I have to do.




Besides my UEFI issue, there have been a few success histories and some more
issues I've had with Xen. At the moment, I'm using Xen 4.3.1-5 builded
with the Radeon passthrough patch, using the xl toolset, on top of the Arch
Linux ISO release dated 01/12/2013 as Dom0 with Gnome installed. Bootloader is
Syslinux, which has GPT support even on legacy BIOS mode. Additionally, I also
add the following files contents:

/boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg - reelevant Xen option
LABEL xen    MENU LABEL Xen    KERNEL mboot.c32    APPEND ../xen-4.3.1.gz ---
../vmlinuz-linux console=tty0 root=/dev/sda5 rw
xen-pciback.hide=(01:00.0)(01:00.1) earlyprintk=vga,keep ---
../initramfs-linux.img

VM/DomU CFG file
name = "wxpmain"builder = 'hvm'memory = 3584boot =
"c"vcpus = 4vif = ['bridge=xenbr0']pci =
['01:00.0','01:00.1']xen_platform_pci = 1device_model_version =
"qemu-xen-traditional"serial = 'pty'viridian = 1pae = 1acpi =
1apic = 1disk =
['file:wxp_sp3.img,hda,w','file:gamesvhd.img,hdb,w']# nographic
= 1soundhw = 'ac97'opengl = 1sdl = 1vnc = 0vnclisten =
""vncpasswd = ""stdvga = 0gfx_passthru = 0



1) VGA Passthrough
During the last month, besides failing with UEFI I also tinkered with Xen in
legacy BIOS mode, but have been unable to pass the Video Card, a Radeon 5770, to
a Windows XP SP3 VM. That was until a recent discovery...

At first, I used xl pci-assignable-add to manually add everytime I rebooted Dom0
the GPU and the HDMI device, but decided to add these to the syslinux.cfg file
to skip that step. Either way, I didn't had any issues making the Radeon
itself free to pass it to the VM (As I was using my Xeon Haswell integrated GPU
as main Video Card, and didn't installed the Radeon Drivers on Dom0) when I
used xl create and had the pci = option in the VM's CFG file. However, it
either BSODed, or Windows was unable to use it as it appeared with a yellow
exclamation mark while on Device Manager.Googling around I found that the latest
version of QEMU broke VGA Passthrough, and that using qemu-xen-traditional fixed
it, which I through I was using. However, there was a problem with that. Using
device_model = qemu-xen-traditional, as told by most Xen VGA Passthrough guides
available currently, I got this error:
WARNING: ignoring device_model directive.WARNING: Use
"device_model_override" instead if you really want a non-default
device_model
I ignored that because the VM was successfully created, and besides, when I
replaced device_model = qemu-dm with device_model_override =
qemu-xen-traditional, it throwed another error which made it to not even create
the VM. However, I recently discovered that I instead had to use
device_model_version = qemu-xen-traditional. It worked pretty much flawlessly
with that. Basically, there are a lot of guides, and even the Xen wiki, that are
severely outdated in this area. I spend weeks trying to figure out what I was
doing wrong due bad documentation, maybe because I didn't digged deep enough
earlier, but still, most of the easily accessible data and google results are
for older versions, and some critical options like device_model have changed.
http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_Configuration_File_Options - old parameters which I
was usinghttp://xenbits.xen.org/docs/unstable/man/xl.cfg.5.html - what I should
have used on first place
This is really worth writing about because I'm sure that someone else will
sooner or later stumble here (Saw several people with this issue on google), as
some guides assumes you're using an specific Linux distribution with an
older Xen version instead of something bleeding edge.

After finally being able to see Windows Desktop on the Monitor plugged to the
Radeon 5770, I installed the Radeon 5770 Drivers from Device Manager with an INF
file instead of the full Catalyst Control Center, as I hear than that gives more
possible BSOD issues. Additionally, after around one week of playing around with
the GPU on the VM (Even leaving a game open during all the night), I don't
seem to notice issues, and the games I tried (Path of Exile, League of Legends)
worked flawlessly with it. I only had a single GPU crash, with lost of Monitor
signal and the VM destroying itself, but that may not be necesarrily
attributable to Xen.Also, I didn't notice any issues with the so-called
"Soft Reset" or FLR, but maybe that was because I builded Xen with the
Radeon patch included. For example, I used xl destroy to abruptly shut down the
VM. The Monitor shows a freezed image of the last image before I did that, yet I
am able to create it again with the Video Card passing with no issues. I
didn't notice either any performance degradation, albeit I'm not sure if
that is under reboot scenarios or also applies when you shut down and create
again the VM/DomU without restarting Dom0.
Overally, it seems very functional and quite reliable. The only actual issue I
find, is that when I create the VM, I need to have the VM window (Check attached
file) on the main monitor as the active window, otherwise it seems that after
Windows XP splash screen when it changes video resolution it usually either
BSODs, or doesn't initialize the Video Card properly, and instead the
Monitor stays in Standby while the VM window displays the Windows Desktop as if
there was no VGA Passthrough being done.


2) VNC vs SDL, Keyboard and Mouse focus
I have tried with both VNC and SDL and I prefer the later. When I use SDL, the
VM window automatically pops up, through that is rather unneeded as it later
black screens as the Radeon takes control of the video output in the other
Monitor. With VNC I have to manually launch vncviewer to be able to control the
VM. Most important is that with SDL, when I click on the VM black window,
control of the Keyboard and Mouse goes to the VM, while on VNC I didn't ever
managed to get control of the Keyboard. The Mouse pointer works without having
to make the VM window the active one as if I was using a freemouse tool on a
windowed game, however, the VM black window surface on Dom0 doesn't allow me
to travel the entire Desktop surface of the VM, so is rather useless.
The only thing that annoys me from using SDL is that I have the black screen
always open while the VM is working, and having to click it everytime I want to
switch control to the VM is rather annoying. Isn't there any way to change
Keyboard and Mouse focus from Dom0 to a DomU and viceversa like if they were
consoles? For example, I may want to use Ctrl + Alt + F1 to get control of Dom0,
then use Ctrl + Alt + F2 to switch control to the VM. This would increase
usability.


3) Disk Images
As can be seen in the CFG file I copypasted, I'm using file: for my IMG Disk
Images. However, on some other documentation like that of blktap2 on the Xen
wiki, it mentions that I can use tap:tapdisk:aio:, however, is there any reason
why I should pick one over another? Do they also have specific format support or
anything I should be careful with?
Besides, is there any easy way to mount the IMG Disk Image files on Linux
(Including NTFS partitions) so I can retrieve or add files when the VM is not
running? I still didn't learned to setup Networks with Linux and need a
workable way to move data from and to the VM Disk Images.
I know about LVM partitions, but find them a bit harder to manage than Disk
Images. Plus performance is currently adequate this way.


4) Audio emulation
While the Windows XP VM works nicely with games, I have the issue that there is
no audio coming from it, which seems to be the most important missing thing
before I can call my VM "production-ready" for playing games as if it
were my old computer. I didn't tried to pass the integrated Realtek Sound
Card, but that would be rather stupid as I need sound in both the current Linux
Dom0, which I'm using for simple task like browsing, and the Windows XP VM
for games. This means I have to rely on emulated Audio devices, which as far
that I know are common.soundhw = 'ac97' seems to work, Windows XP
recognizes the Sound Card and install the Drivers for it with no issues. It also
has the HDMI device passed to it along the GPU. However, after googling a lot, I
didn't find any easy to get audio from a DomU to Dom0 to get mixed so I can
rely on emulated Sound Cards instead of needing one per VM like you need Video
Cards.
As far that I know, there are other VMMs like VirtualBox where you can usually
get easily sound from the VMs, and it also uses QEMU-emulated Sound Cards as Xen
does. Is there any reason why getting audio doesn't seem to be easy to do on
Xen? I know that many people considers USB Sound Card cheap to pass to the VM,
but I don't have easy access to those, so I would need a Software way to get
sound from multiple VMs using a single Headphone connected to the integrated
Realtek Sound Card.


Well, so far, that's all. Thanks for reading, I hope to have everything
ready so I can happily jump onto Xen 4.4 when it gets released.


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