I think I found a reason I need XEN ... Booting to non-Xen bzroot I get a ton of these errors "amd-vi event logged io_page_fault unraid" and despite my sata card posting I don't have access to the drives attached to it (aka my cache).  Log attached and hardware in sig

 

EDIT: rebooted to Xen mode. All it peachy. That log is attached for comparison

 

What PCI device of your is 03:00.1?  Can you check under the System Devices page?

03:00.1 IDE interface: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE912x IDE Controller (rev 12

 

Which is not surprising given my research

Based on some research I made a hail mary to add "iommu=pt" I have no idea what that does and if it will harm my KVM function. but at least i can boot with "normal" function. Log attached

 

EDIT: I'm too lazy to try it right now, but i'm also seeing this as an option "amd_iommu=on" http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=35732.msg353555#msg353555 .. of course i'm working right now but like i said, I haven't started up a KVM yet to really test

syslog-NOXEN-iommu=pt.zip

Based on some research I made a hail mary to add "iommu=pt" I have no idea what that does and if it will harm my KVM function. but at least i can boot with "normal" function. Log attached

 

Yes, we may be missing a kernel command line parameter for IOMMU with AMD.  That could have something to do with it.  AMD is definitely more "hokey" than Intel when it comes to IOMMU.

ack damn ... I edited in the middle of you posting ... see my edit above

 

What can I do to help test?

ack damn ... I edited in the middle of you posting ... see my edit above

 

What can I do to help test?

 

Well the amd_iommu=on is something you can definitely try.  Put the on your append line in syslinux.cfg and give it a whirl.

Happy to report that jonp's instructions also work perfectly for Windows 8.1 VMs (except that point 6.6 needs to be modified to source the drivers from the Win8 folder but that's fairly obvious in any case).

 

I managed to get my PCI sound card passed through as well so now I have 2x Windows VMs up and running, both with discrete PCI/PCIe devices passed through. (no VGA passthrough yet, that will be my next step).

 

Note that I did need to enable PCIe ACS override in Settings->VMManager for this to work. No more risky than what I was doing in Xen, according to jonp.

 

I've had no luck migrating my ArchLinux/Manjaro/Netrunner VM - it complains about not finding disk UIDs on bod (though i've checked via Grub> root(hd  and UIDs are the same as before, so I'm not sure what's going on there.

 

I did end up repurposing by Xenbr0 network bridge for Kvm as the default bridge was kicking on IPs in the form '192.168.122.n' which were no good to me as I have static IPs assigned to my VMs and these wouldn't work unless I used the xenbr0.

 

Overall, this is a straightforward process and seems to be fairly stable with no performance loss (or gain).

 

Onwards and upwards!

 

Yesterday I spent some time converting a Windows 7 VM replacement for a desktop computer and a Windows 7 VM used for Media Center Extenders using a Networked Ceton Infini TV tuner.

 

Jonp's procedure worked.  I also had some confusion about the virtio driver vdisk setup, but did figure it out.  Jonp, the help/instructions need to be clarified in that area.

 

I ended up with three issues:

- RDP performance to the desktop VM was slow and the graphics very choppy.  (not necessarily a show stopper).

- I could not set up static IPs on the VMs.  (show stopper).

- Possibly a network performance issue as my Ceton tuner could not communicate well with the Media Center VM and get proper channel pairing.  (show stopper).

 

I ran out of time so I rolled back.

 

Today I am trying another approach.  I loaded a new Windows 7 VM and left the Xen VMs alone so I could just reboot and go back.  I was able to set a static IP address on the VM but RDP performance is still poor.  I am installing all the Windows 7 updates to see if that helps with any updates.

 

I will probably set up a new Media Center VM and try one extender to see if it will work.  If I can work out the RDP and any Media Center Extender issue, I may just take the leap and move on.  It will take some time to configure the VMs.  The Media Center VM is pretty tricky to set up because I have to trick the VM into setting up the tuners because it does not have a physical GPU.  Not difficult, just tedious.

 

I'd appreciate any tips, suggestions on the RDP performance.  I'm thinking it is an xml setting of some kind.  I don't believe it is my network as it worked well before and I use RDP from outside my home network and to my office from the home network.  I also RDP to a physical computer on my home LAN without any issues.

 

EDIT: I do not have or plan to have a pass through GPU for either VM.  Is there possibly a replacement video driver to the standard vga driver to enhance the performance in KVM?

For some reason I get best RDP performance if I set the client end to use 24 bit colour.  Setting it to 16 or 32 bit both reduced performance dramatically.

Today I am trying another approach.  I loaded a new Windows 7 VM and left the Xen VMs alone so I could just reboot and go back.  I was able to set a static IP address on the VM but RDP performance is still poor.  I am installing all the Windows 7 updates to see if that helps with any updates.

 

I will probably set up a new Media Center VM and try one extender to see if it will work.  If I can work out the RDP and any Media Center Extender issue, I may just take the leap and move on.  It will take some time to configure the VMs.  The Media Center VM is pretty tricky to set up because I have to trick the VM into setting up the tuners because it does not have a physical GPU.  Not difficult, just tedious.

 

I'd appreciate any tips, suggestions on the RDP performance.  I'm thinking it is an xml setting of some kind.  I don't believe it is my network as it worked well before and I use RDP from outside my home network and to my office from the home network.  I also RDP to a physical computer on my home LAN without any issues.

 

EDIT: I do not have or plan to have a pass through GPU for either VM.  Is there possibly a replacement video driver to the standard vga driver to enhance the performance in KVM?

 

I did a clean install of a Win7 Prof 64 bit vm on my testbed system, fully updated it and found RDP performance to still be "choppy" as you say.  Last evening I installed a Win8.1 Prof 64 bit vm on my testbed.  RDP performance on it is excellent - every bit as good as I  am getting running on ESXi.

 

This raises the question - why is there such a huge performance difference between these two windows versions?  I used to have a test Win7 vm on my ESXi system, but don't remember seeing this big a difference.

 

I can make  these two vms and my testbed system available for further testing/experimenting, if needed.

 

 

Today I am trying another approach.  I loaded a new Windows 7 VM and left the Xen VMs alone so I could just reboot and go back.  I was able to set a static IP address on the VM but RDP performance is still poor.  I am installing all the Windows 7 updates to see if that helps with any updates.

 

I will probably set up a new Media Center VM and try one extender to see if it will work.  If I can work out the RDP and any Media Center Extender issue, I may just take the leap and move on.  It will take some time to configure the VMs.  The Media Center VM is pretty tricky to set up because I have to trick the VM into setting up the tuners because it does not have a physical GPU.  Not difficult, just tedious.

 

I'd appreciate any tips, suggestions on the RDP performance.  I'm thinking it is an xml setting of some kind.  I don't believe it is my network as it worked well before and I use RDP from outside my home network and to my office from the home network.  I also RDP to a physical computer on my home LAN without any issues.

 

EDIT: I do not have or plan to have a pass through GPU for either VM.  Is there possibly a replacement video driver to the standard vga driver to enhance the performance in KVM?

 

I did a clean install of a Win7 Prof 64 bit vm on my testbed system, fully updated it and found RDP performance to still be "choppy" as you say.  Last evening I installed a Win8.1 Prof 64 bit vm on my testbed.  RDP performance on it is excellent - every bit as good as I  am getting running on ESXi.

 

This raises the question - why is there such a huge performance difference between these two windows versions?  I used to have a test Win7 vm on my ESXi system, but don't remember seeing this big a difference.

 

I can make  these two vms and my testbed system available for further testing/experimenting, if needed.

The driver support for the virtual graphics device may be different in win 7 than it is in win 8. There are alternate virtual frame buffer devices we can specify than what it is now. I suggested a few to dlandon. I'd like to hear his feedback from testing.

Today I am trying another approach.  I loaded a new Windows 7 VM and left the Xen VMs alone so I could just reboot and go back.  I was able to set a static IP address on the VM but RDP performance is still poor.  I am installing all the Windows 7 updates to see if that helps with any updates.

 

I will probably set up a new Media Center VM and try one extender to see if it will work.  If I can work out the RDP and any Media Center Extender issue, I may just take the leap and move on.  It will take some time to configure the VMs.  The Media Center VM is pretty tricky to set up because I have to trick the VM into setting up the tuners because it does not have a physical GPU.  Not difficult, just tedious.

 

I'd appreciate any tips, suggestions on the RDP performance.  I'm thinking it is an xml setting of some kind.  I don't believe it is my network as it worked well before and I use RDP from outside my home network and to my office from the home network.  I also RDP to a physical computer on my home LAN without any issues.

 

EDIT: I do not have or plan to have a pass through GPU for either VM.  Is there possibly a replacement video driver to the standard vga driver to enhance the performance in KVM?

 

I did a clean install of a Win7 Prof 64 bit vm on my testbed system, fully updated it and found RDP performance to still be "choppy" as you say.  Last evening I installed a Win8.1 Prof 64 bit vm on my testbed.  RDP performance on it is excellent - every bit as good as I  am getting running on ESXi.

 

This raises the question - why is there such a huge performance difference between these two windows versions?  I used to have a test Win7 vm on my ESXi system, but don't remember seeing this big a difference.

 

I can make  these two vms and my testbed system available for further testing/experimenting, if needed.

The driver support for the virtual graphics device may be different in win 7 than it is in win 8. There are alternate virtual frame buffer devices we can specify than what it is now. I suggested a few to dlandon. I'd like to hear his feedback from testing.

 

I changed the video from 'vmvga' to 'cirrus' and performance is a bit better, but still not what I expect.  Jonp has suggested changing the video memory.  I'll try that when I get a chance and see if I can make it better.

 

Jonp, once an optimum RDP setup is found, I'd suggest adding a Windows RDP video choice.  Every time I make changes in the VM manager, any changes to the video are changed back to the 'VNC' choice defaults.

Today I am trying another approach.  I loaded a new Windows 7 VM and left the Xen VMs alone so I could just reboot and go back.  I was able to set a static IP address on the VM but RDP performance is still poor.  I am installing all the Windows 7 updates to see if that helps with any updates.

 

I will probably set up a new Media Center VM and try one extender to see if it will work.  If I can work out the RDP and any Media Center Extender issue, I may just take the leap and move on.  It will take some time to configure the VMs.  The Media Center VM is pretty tricky to set up because I have to trick the VM into setting up the tuners because it does not have a physical GPU.  Not difficult, just tedious.

 

I'd appreciate any tips, suggestions on the RDP performance.  I'm thinking it is an xml setting of some kind.  I don't believe it is my network as it worked well before and I use RDP from outside my home network and to my office from the home network.  I also RDP to a physical computer on my home LAN without any issues.

 

EDIT: I do not have or plan to have a pass through GPU for either VM.  Is there possibly a replacement video driver to the standard vga driver to enhance the performance in KVM?

 

I did a clean install of a Win7 Prof 64 bit vm on my testbed system, fully updated it and found RDP performance to still be "choppy" as you say.  Last evening I installed a Win8.1 Prof 64 bit vm on my testbed.  RDP performance on it is excellent - every bit as good as I  am getting running on ESXi.

 

This raises the question - why is there such a huge performance difference between these two windows versions?  I used to have a test Win7 vm on my ESXi system, but don't remember seeing this big a difference.

 

I can make  these two vms and my testbed system available for further testing/experimenting, if needed.

The driver support for the virtual graphics device may be different in win 7 than it is in win 8. There are alternate virtual frame buffer devices we can specify than what it is now. I suggested a few to dlandon. I'd like to hear his feedback from testing.

 

I changed the video from 'vmvga' to 'cirrus' and performance is a bit better, but still not what I expect.  Jonp has suggested changing the video memory.  I'll try that when I get a chance and see if I can make it better.

 

Jonp, once an optimum RDP setup is found, I'd suggest adding a Windows RDP video choice.  Every time I make changes in the VM manager, any changes to the video are changed back to the 'VNC' choice defaults.

 

We may add a setting under advanced view for VNC:  virtual graphics model.  Will need to look into this further.

Over the weekend I created two new KVM VMs and moved settings and data from two Xen VMs.  I have a 512GB SSD cache drive formatted XFS.  The Xen VMs were 120GB raw images each for a total of 240GB on the disk.  I left them on the cache drive and created two new KVM raw images of 120GB each.  This would take the drive to 480GB of VM images plus a 10GB Docker and about 3-4GB of appdata.  I also had about 5GB of iso files on the cache.  I subsequently removed the Xen VMs.

 

Everything is up and running fine, but here is the situation I am having with my cache drive.  In the webgui, the cache drive is currently reporting:

512GB capacity

109GB used

403GB free

 

The math just doesn't work with the 2 120GB VM images I have on the cache.  Trim is reporting '/mnt/cache: 402707238912 bytes were trimmed, which is what the webgui is reporting.  If I do properties on the 'domains' directory where the VM images are stored with Windows, it shows 240GB used.  If I browse  on the webgui, I can see the two VM images on the cache drive, so I know that's where they are.

 

I backed up the two new VM images and they copied 120GB to the backup directory.

 

While I had all 4 120GB images on the cache, I did notice that the reported free space was too high, but at the time I didn't think anything of it.

 

I ran the disk check on the cache drive from the webgui to correct any problems while in the maintenance mode, but I don't understand enough about it to know what it is reporting.

 

I would like some help from someone who knows more about XFS file systems on what commands I can run to figure out what is going on here.  It appears that the cache drive has a free space issue.

Today I am trying another approach.  I loaded a new Windows 7 VM and left the Xen VMs alone so I could just reboot and go back.  I was able to set a static IP address on the VM but RDP performance is still poor.  I am installing all the Windows 7 updates to see if that helps with any updates.

 

I will probably set up a new Media Center VM and try one extender to see if it will work.  If I can work out the RDP and any Media Center Extender issue, I may just take the leap and move on.  It will take some time to configure the VMs.  The Media Center VM is pretty tricky to set up because I have to trick the VM into setting up the tuners because it does not have a physical GPU.  Not difficult, just tedious.

 

I'd appreciate any tips, suggestions on the RDP performance.  I'm thinking it is an xml setting of some kind.  I don't believe it is my network as it worked well before and I use RDP from outside my home network and to my office from the home network.  I also RDP to a physical computer on my home LAN without any issues.

 

EDIT: I do not have or plan to have a pass through GPU for either VM.  Is there possibly a replacement video driver to the standard vga driver to enhance the performance in KVM?

 

I did a clean install of a Win7 Prof 64 bit vm on my testbed system, fully updated it and found RDP performance to still be "choppy" as you say.  Last evening I installed a Win8.1 Prof 64 bit vm on my testbed.  RDP performance on it is excellent - every bit as good as I  am getting running on ESXi.

 

This raises the question - why is there such a huge performance difference between these two windows versions?  I used to have a test Win7 vm on my ESXi system, but don't remember seeing this big a difference.

 

I can make  these two vms and my testbed system available for further testing/experimenting, if needed.

The driver support for the virtual graphics device may be different in win 7 than it is in win 8. There are alternate virtual frame buffer devices we can specify than what it is now. I suggested a few to dlandon. I'd like to hear his feedback from testing.

 

I changed the video from 'vmvga' to 'cirrus' and performance is a bit better, but still not what I expect.  Jonp has suggested changing the video memory.  I'll try that when I get a chance and see if I can make it better.

 

Jonp, once an optimum RDP setup is found, I'd suggest adding a Windows RDP video choice.  Every time I make changes in the VM manager, any changes to the video are changed back to the 'VNC' choice defaults.

 

We may add a setting under advanced view for VNC:  virtual graphics model.  Will need to look into this further.

 

I have some more information on the RDP response issues.  I did set the video to cirrus and it seems to have made a slight difference, but didn't really solve the problem.

 

I have a domain name set on my router with DNS updating so I can access my network remotely.  The VM I RDP into is on the unraid server so I can access it both by the local network name while on the LAN or by the domain name when I'm not on my local LAN.  I have the VM set with a static IP and port forward the RDP port.  I have found that RDP response when accessing the RDP on the LAN using the network name of the VM is terribly slow and jerky.  When I access the VM through the domain name the response is as expected.

 

When accessing the VM with RDP on the LAN, it will use the LAN IP address.  With using the domain name to access the RDP, the name will be looked up by a external DNS server and handed back to the RDP client.  The access to the RDP VM is then accessed using NAT Loopback.

 

I have my unraid set up with Xenbr0 as the bridge.

 

I can access other computers on my local LAN without issues.

 

EDIT: Outside my LAN it also works fine.  That wouldn't be a NAT Loopback issue then.  It is only with local access using the network name while on the LAN that RDP performs badly.

Over the weekend I created two new KVM VMs and moved settings and data from two Xen VMs.  I have a 512GB SSD cache drive formatted XFS.  The Xen VMs were 120GB raw images each for a total of 240GB on the disk.  I left them on the cache drive and created two new KVM raw images of 120GB each.  This would take the drive to 480GB of VM images plus a 10GB Docker and about 3-4GB of appdata.  I also had about 5GB of iso files on the cache.  I subsequently removed the Xen VMs.

 

Everything is up and running fine, but here is the situation I am having with my cache drive.  In the webgui, the cache drive is currently reporting:

512GB capacity

109GB used

403GB free

 

The math just doesn't work with the 2 120GB VM images I have on the cache.  Trim is reporting '/mnt/cache: 402707238912 bytes were trimmed, which is what the webgui is reporting.  If I do properties on the 'domains' directory where the VM images are stored with Windows, it shows 240GB used.  If I browse  on the webgui, I can see the two VM images on the cache drive, so I know that's where they are.

 

I backed up the two new VM images and they copied 120GB to the backup directory.

 

While I had all 4 120GB images on the cache, I did notice that the reported free space was too high, but at the time I didn't think anything of it.

 

I ran the disk check on the cache drive from the webgui to correct any problems while in the maintenance mode, but I don't understand enough about it to know what it is reporting.

 

I would like some help from someone who knows more about XFS file systems on what commands I can run to figure out what is going on here.  It appears that the cache drive has a free space issue.

 

d, is there a chance those new KVM images are sparse? Does 109gb make sense for the actual data you've got in play?

Over the weekend I created two new KVM VMs and moved settings and data from two Xen VMs.  I have a 512GB SSD cache drive formatted XFS.  The Xen VMs were 120GB raw images each for a total of 240GB on the disk.  I left them on the cache drive and created two new KVM raw images of 120GB each.  This would take the drive to 480GB of VM images plus a 10GB Docker and about 3-4GB of appdata.  I also had about 5GB of iso files on the cache.  I subsequently removed the Xen VMs.

 

Everything is up and running fine, but here is the situation I am having with my cache drive.  In the webgui, the cache drive is currently reporting:

512GB capacity

109GB used

403GB free

 

The math just doesn't work with the 2 120GB VM images I have on the cache.  Trim is reporting '/mnt/cache: 402707238912 bytes were trimmed, which is what the webgui is reporting.  If I do properties on the 'domains' directory where the VM images are stored with Windows, it shows 240GB used.  If I browse  on the webgui, I can see the two VM images on the cache drive, so I know that's where they are.

 

I backed up the two new VM images and they copied 120GB to the backup directory.

 

While I had all 4 120GB images on the cache, I did notice that the reported free space was too high, but at the time I didn't think anything of it.

 

I ran the disk check on the cache drive from the webgui to correct any problems while in the maintenance mode, but I don't understand enough about it to know what it is reporting.

 

I would like some help from someone who knows more about XFS file systems on what commands I can run to figure out what is going on here.  It appears that the cache drive has a free space issue.

 

d, is there a chance those new KVM images are sparse? Does 109gb make sense for the actual data you've got in play?

 

Yes it does, but I didn't expect that from raw images.  I would expect qcow to do that.

My experience is that the raw images created on an XFS formatted disk DO seem to be sparse and thus occupy less space than might otherwise be expected.    However one still needs to allow for the maximum theoretical size as they could grow to that.

My experience is that the raw images created on an XFS formatted disk DO seem to be sparse and thus occupy less space than might otherwise be expected.    However one still needs to allow for the maximum theoretical size as they could grow to that.

 

Thank you for the information.  I spent a lot of time creating those VMs and setting them up.  I don't want to lose them.  I do keep in mind the overall size of the images.

So if I have a Xen Ubuntu VM is there some guide to change it to KVM?

 

Do I need to do this to upgrade to b15?

Do I need to do this to upgrade to b15?

 

I can't answer your first question, but no you don't need to do this for b15. It's very likely that you will need to do this for future releases though.

So if I have a Xen Ubuntu VM is there some guide to change it to KVM?

 

Do I need to do this to upgrade to b15?

Is your hardware compatible?  You need intel vtx or amd-v to create VMS in kvm.

So if I have a Xen Ubuntu VM is there some guide to change it to KVM?

 

Do I need to do this to upgrade to b15?

I think your questions are what this whole thread has been about. Maybe go back to page 1.

Is your hardware compatible?  You need intel vtx or amd-v to create VMS in kvm.

 

Yes CPU has vtx.

I can't answer your first question, but no you don't need to do this for b15. It's very likely that you will need to do this for future releases though.

 

Yeah,  I might as well do it now if xen is being dropped.