Re: [Xen-users] Xen 3.1 terrible slowly on a laptop

[carlopmart <carlopmart@xxxxxxxxx>]

Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
> carlopmart wrote:
> > Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
> > > carlopmart wrote:
> > > > Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
> > > > > carlopmart wrote:
> > > > > > Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
> > > > > > > carlopmart wrote:
> > > > > > > > Hi all,
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >  I have installed rhel 5.1 with xen 3.1 on a laptop and ALL is 
> > > > > > > > terrible slowly (network, mouse, etc.) If I starts with a normal 
> > > > > > > > kernel (without xen enabled) all works normally. Do I need to 
> > > > > > > > pass any param to grub on xen enabled kernel to all works ok??
> > > > > > > > Thanks ...
> > > > > > > Laptops are always an adventure. Do you really have enough RAM? 
> > > > > > > RHEL 5 is a bit of a RAM pig. Are you using all the CPU's, or 
> > > > > > > only one? Is your hard drive an ATA drive that needs "hdparm" 
> > > > > > > used to set it optimally? Tell us more!
> > > > > > My laptop have 1 GB of RAM, and it is Pentium M 2.0Ghz. for guests 
> > > > > > I only use one cpu. And another problem is clock: lost 5 minutes 
> > > > > > every 15 min.... runs so slowly on host ...
> > > > > Umm. Not good. Are you running NTP on the Dom0, and being sure not 
> > > > > to run it on your DomU? And how much RAM did you allocatae for 
> > > > > DomU? RHEL 5 is really, really unhappy with less than 250 Meg, and 
> > > > > not exactly thrilled with as little as 500 Meg.
> > > > Yes, I am running ntp on dom0 and not on domU. I am suing 384 MB ram 
> > > > for guest, and rest for dom0.
> > > OK. I wonder if you've got some other issues going on, such as the 
> > > CPU being throttled back to do power saving. But what does "free" say 
> > > in DomU about your available RAM? Are you swapping? And are you using 
> > > a file image, or an LVM partition? And when you built the image, if 
> > > you used a file image, did you make sure that it's not "sparse"?
> > oops i think that you point me to the problem. I am using a sparse 
> > file for guest disk ... Is this really a problem?? Can't i use sparse 
> > files on a laptop???  And yes I have activated power saving ...
> I've not played with it much, but using sparse files seems to be an 
> awful idea until you've actually populated the file system through use. 
> This means that your first system operations, such as installing 
> software, compiling new tools, or building new databases, are goiing to 
> suffer horribly from it.
> I also can't help thinking that your Dom0 may not have its hard drive 
> set up correctly: if you're using an IDE or ATA drive, check what 
> "hdparm" says about it. You may get a huge performance benefit from a 
> "hdparm -d1c1 /dev/hda" or from setting up your sysconfig setttings 
> correctly for a contemporary ATA drive.
> > My guest config is:
> >
> > kernel = "/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-67.ELxenU"
> > ramdisk = "/boot/initrd-2.6.9-67.ELxenU.img"
> > bootloader = "/usr/bin/pygrub"
> WHOAH. Hold it right there. Why are you using those kernel and ramdisk 
> settings in company with the pygrub? You don't need them, and you 
> probably added them manually, rather than using virt-install, right?
> Comment them out and just use the pygrub.
>
> > name = "RhelUpdates"
> > memory = "384"
> > maxmem = "384"
> > disk = [ 
> > 'tap:aio:/data/xenvmguests/rhel4updates/rhel4vol01.xvda,xvda,w' ]
> > vif = [ 'type=ieomu, mac=00:16:31:a5:67:13, bridge=natxenbr0' ]
> > vcpus = 1
> > on_reboot = 'restart'
> > on_crash = 'destroy'
> > sdl = 0
> > vnc = 1
> > vfb = [ 'type=vnc,vncunused=1' ]
I think that hdparm returns correcty parameters:
/dev/hda:
 multcount    = 16 (on)
 IO_support   =  0 (default 16-bit)
 unmaskirq    =  0 (off)
 using_dma    =  1 (on)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    = 256 (on)
 geometry     = 16383/255/63, sectors = 156301488, start = 0

 DMA it is activated, and this disk is IDE, I am not sure if I can activate 32 
bits transfer using -c1 option on hdparm.
 If I don't put which kernel image needs to startup on guest system with kernel 
and ramdisk params, I can't start guest. Pygrub returns a lot errors about 
doesn't find a valid kernel image.
 I will try to use a complete file image, and not sparse file ...

--
CL Martinez
carlopmart {at} gmail {d0t} com

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