Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 483535
RHEL4 kvm virtio: kernel driver updates
Last modified: 2009-05-18 15:35:48 EDT
There are a couple of updates that we need for the RHEL-4 virtio network drivers. At present, they are: 1) TSO offload; this should reduce CPU usage on the host machine by offloading checksumming until the last possible moment. 2) MTU change; this will allow the guest to send > 1500 byte packets out over the network. I'll attach patches for both of these once I have them cleaned up and tested.
Created attachment 330607 [details] Patch to allow MTU to be changed
Created attachment 330608 [details] Patch to let RHEL-4 use TSO offload
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux maintenance release. Product Management has requested further review of this request by Red Hat Engineering, for potential inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Update release for currently deployed products. This request is not yet committed for inclusion in an Update release.
Comment on attachment 330608 [details] Patch to let RHEL-4 use TSO offload I've obsoleted the TSO patch for now. In testing, I couldn't make out a discernible difference between a kernel with the TSO patch and one without. So unless/until we can show an improvement in behavior, leave it out.
Committed in 81.EL . RPMS are available at http://people.redhat.com/vgoyal/rhel4/
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-2009-1024.html