Description of problem: Performance of a bare-metal kernel as a fully-virtualized guest (FV guest) on a Xen host can be significantly improved with the addition of xen paravirtualized disk and network drivers. This support is currently provided by a set of asynch drivers "xenpv", and requires significant hand-holding by a system admin. in order to use them. Adding them directly to the bare-metal kernel significantly eases the use of pv disk and network for FV guests, improving the overall product in a virtual environment Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 4.7 How reproducible: Compare a 4.6 kernel FV guest performing disk or network IO in comparison to the same kernel with the kmod-xenpv, rhel4 package added and using pv disk and network interfaces. Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3. Actual results: Expected results: Additional info:
Set dev ack for Don.
Posted patches to 4.7.
Committed in 68.32.EL . RPMS are available at http://people.redhat.com/vgoyal/rhel4/
added to RHEL4.7 release notes under "Feature Updates => Virtualization": <quote> This update implements the use of paravirtualized block device and network drivers, which improve the performance of fully-virtualized guests. These drivers are provided in the pv-on-hvm package. In addition, you can now use more than three virtual network interface (VNIF) numbers per guest domain. </quote> please advise if any further revisions are required. thanks!
the pv-on-hvm drivers are built into the rhel4.7 kernel package. The separate, xenpv-<rev>.el4 package(s) are no longer needed for 4.7 and beyond. the pv-on-hvm drivers can be found in the sources under <kernel-src>/drivers/xenpv_hvm - Don
revised as follows: <quote> This update implements the use of paravirtualized block device and network drivers, which improve the performance of fully-virtualized guests.γIn addition, you can now use more than three virtual network interface (VNIF) numbers per guest domain. </quote> please advise if any further revisions are required. thanks!
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on therefore solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2008-0665.html