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    |   xen-users
RE: [Xen-users] RE: VM with PV drivers; Win2003 lock-up 
| | Hi James   Thanks for the quick reply. Boot device and all swap is on xenvbd. Bart > Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 09:43:14 +1000
 > From: james.harper@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 > To: bart_brooks@xxxxxxxxxxx; xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 > CC: andy.grover@xxxxxxxxxx; annie.li@xxxxxxxxxx; wayne.gong@xxxxxxxxxx
 > Subject: [Xen-users] RE: VM with PV drivers; Win2003 lock-up
 >
 > Bart,
 >
 > I hope you don't mind, I have cc'd xen-users as I'll end up repeating
 > this there anyway.
 >
 > > Hi James
 > >
 > > I'm running the latest windows PV drivers (downloaded and built as
 > checked
 > > version) on a win2k3 SP2 VM image, which has 4 cpus defined in the xen
 > > script. The host is running xen version 3.1.4 on 2.6.18 -
 > >
 > > The image boots up and runs fine -
 > >
 > > On the VM added an external storage (volume) via iscsi; the storage is
 > > added fine and can be read/written to.
 > >
 > > When I fire up an iometer test, after about 40 minutes or so the VM no
 > > longer answers pings, I can connect to the console via vnc but the
 > > pointing device is dead.
 > >
 > > xm destroyed the VM and re-ran the test under the debugger; using
 > another
 > > VM to debug the image.
 > >
 > > When the VM running iometer locks; I am able to break into the
 > debugger -
 > >
 > > But doing step-overs all that seems to run is nt!KiIdleLoop and once
 > in
 > > awhile nt!PoSetPowerState
 > >
 > > Questions -
 > >
 > > Will we get PowerEevents if the system is resource starved ?
 > >
 > > If so how will the PV drivers handle it ?
 >
 > Not sure. I haven't implemented any power stuff.
 >
 > > Have you run into this type of condition before?
 >
 > Nope.
 >
 > > Any words of wisdom, etc ...
 > >
 > > Do you have an unreleased version of the code (drivers), which would
 > aid
 > > in tracking down this issue?
 > >
 > > I don't mind running unreleased code -
 >
 > It's a bit of a tricky time. I have just recently updated the interrupt
 > triggering code and unfortunately this has resulted in a huge reduction
 > in network performance. Previously the code went:
 > (XenPCI IRQ)->(XenPCI Dpc)->(XenNet IRQ)->(XenNet Dpc)
 > But now it goes:
 > (XenPCI IRQ)->(XenNet IRQ)->(XenNet Dpc)
 >
 > Which means a huge decrease in latency between getting the interrupt and
 > calling of the Dpc where the actual work gets done. The side effect of
 > this is that under high network load there is a much smaller amount of
 > work to be done per interrupt (less packets built up), and so the per
 > packet overhead is much higher. The difference in performance is mainly
 > on the RX side of things, and is in the order of a reduction from around
 > 800MB/s to 50MB/s. Nasty.
 >
 > I've just started putting in some code to implement some higher
 > efficiencies - basically telling Xen not to interrupt us unless there is
 > more than a single packet of work to be done, with a timer to make sure
 > that things don't jam up when load reduces and there isn't that much
 > work to be done anymore. Once I have that even half working I'll push it
 > to hg and you can have a look at it. I've also fixed a bunch of little
 > problems along the way that meant that the windows driver verifier was
 > crashing all over the place.
 >
 > None of the above though should cause the problems you are seeing. Is
 > your boot device and all swap devices on xenvbd or is it iSCSI too? I
 > need to know that before I can offer any suggestions.
 >
 > Are you sure that iSCSI is causing a problem? Can you get it to crash
 > without using iSCSI?
 >
 > Thanks for the feedback.
 >
 > James
 >
 > _______________________________________________
 > Xen-users mailing list
 > Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
 
 
 
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