Nvidia support for Xen

[meskalamdug]

Originally Posted by meierkurt

I know how i get this working.

But a real question: Xen is server virtualization. For what the hell somebody needs a 3D VGA on a server?

If you need desktop virtualization, there are much better products than Xen.

"i know how i get this working."
With a recent driver + kernel?
I have tried
2.6.29 and 185.18.36/190.36 and both fail
2.6.31 and 185.18.36/190.36 and kernel oops

[meierkurt]

No, at last 2.6.27. But are you sure Xen is the right product? There are much better things like VMWARE Player or VirtualBox.

Another way is installing the nv driver and use this for Xen, booting standard kernel with nvidia driver.

[meskalamdug]

Originally Posted by meierkurt

No, at last 2.6.27. But are you sure Xen is the right product? There are much better things like VMWARE Player or VirtualBox.

Another way is installing the nv driver and use this for Xen, booting standard kernel with nvidia driver.

Bad solution,i will wait for Xen support by Nvidia.
Meantime i still use..kvm

[meierkurt]

I think this is waiting for Godot.

But this is mainly a Xen Problem. After years of development Xen is not in the standard kernel.

[meskalamdug]

Originally Posted by meierkurt

I think this is waiting for Godot.

But this is mainly a Xen Problem. After years of development Xen is not in the standard kernel.

This is true.
But dom0 support is currently planned for Linux 2.6.33 or 2.6.34

http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenParavirtOps

[gilboa]

Originally Posted by meierkurt

If you need desktop virtualization, there are much better products than Xen.

Actually, Xen (and/or any other para-virtualization product) can potentially yield far better performance than KVM/VMWare.
In the long run, you'll be able to assign one of your host's GPUs (using pciback) to a Windows guest and play run applications/games at native speeds.

- Gilboa

[meskalamdug]

Originally Posted by gilboa

Actually, Xen (and/or any other para-virtualization product) can potentially yield far better performance than KVM/VMWare.
In the long run, you'll be able to assign one of your host's GPUs (using pciback) to a Windows guest and play run applications/games at native speeds.

- Gilboa

I agree,i'm not interested in games(3d support on guest is impossible atm),but i know Xen has better performancethan Vmware and KVM.
For this reason we ask nvidia....please support Xen!

[JaXXoN]

Originally Posted by meskalamdug

3d support on guest is impossible atm

Three years ago, it was feasible to run HW accelerated 3D in a Xen guest:
http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/CoolConfigurations
Is it not possible to to that any more?

However, the guest OS was Linux, not Windows. However, once IOMMU
is fully supported, my understanding is that device drivers do not any more
need to be "xen-aware" and thus the standard windows nvidia driver should
work with pciback. However, I still would prefer a solution where a single
card is shared amongst the host and the guest OS, i.e. like with VirtualBox
(however, 3D support in VirtualBox is pretty slow and unstable, right now,
but I guess it will improve over time).

regards

Bernhard

[meskalamdug]

UP!
Any workaround,patch,fix?
No planned support?

[GT-Schorsch]

Originally Posted by meierkurt

No, at last 2.6.27. But are you sure Xen is the right product? There are much better things like VMWARE Player or VirtualBox. ...

Do you mean you got recent (at least 185.xx) NVIDIA drivers working with 2.6.27 kernel sources from the hg archive of xenbits.xensource.com in your dom0? I do not need it in my domU. I have tried many different solutions (well, at least they worked for others), but most ones are dating back to 2006 or so. So, would you mind to post a small and actual howto? That would be great.

[meskalamdug]

Fantastic video,this guy use Xen 3.5 from svn+intel patches
Xen is the future

[LewC]

xen supports using external devices so you can direct access the device(s) including graphics cards as the video shows, follow the youtube link to his blog and take his software specs down then follow this (he buried it deep within a forum archive the spaz)

Linux bash shell scripts for PCI device passthrough:

(1) passthru-nvidia.sh

#!/bin/sh
echo "10de 06e4" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/pci-stub/new_id
echo "0000:01:00.0" > /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:01:00.0/driver/unbind
echo "0000:01:00.0" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/pci-stub/bind

(2) passthru-firewire.sh

#!/bin/sh
echo "11c1 5811" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/pci-stub/new_id
echo "0000:02:01.0" > /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:02:01.0/driver/unbind
echo "0000:02:01.0" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/pci-stub/bind

#Unload firewire driver
rmmod firewire_ohci
rmmod firewire_core

(3) passthru-audio.sh

#!/bin/sh
echo "8086 3a6e" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/pci-stub/new_id
echo "0000:00:1b.0" > /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:1b.0/driver/unbind
echo "0000:00:1b.0" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/pci-stub/bind

rmmod snd_hda_intel


Windows XP Home Edition SP3 32-bit HVM virtual machine configuration
file /etc/xen/winxphome32:

#import os, re
#arch = os.uname()[4]
#if re.search('64', arch):
# arch_libdir = 'lib64'
#else:
# arch_libdir = 'lib'

kernel = "/usr/lib/xen/boot/hvmloader"
builder='hvm'
memory = 3072

# Should be at least 2KB per MB of domain memory, plus a few MB per vcpu.
#shadow_memory = 8
name = "winxphome32"
vif = [ 'bridge=eth0' ]
acpi = 1
apic = 1
disk = [ 'phy:/dev/virtualmachines/winxphome32,hda,w',
'phy:/dev/sr0,hdc:cdrom,r' ]

#device_model = '/usr/' + arch_libdir + '/xen/bin/qemu-dm'
#device_model = '/usr/' + 'lib' + '/xen/bin/qemu-dm'
device_model = 'qemu-dm'

#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# boot on floppy (a), hard disk (c) or CD-ROM (d)
# default: hard disk, cd-rom, floppy
boot="cd"
sdl=0
vnc=1
vnclisten="192.168.1.2"
vncdisplay=1
vncunused=1
vncconsole=0
vncpasswd=''

#serial='pty'
#usbdevice='tablet'
# onboard
#pci = [ '00:02.0' ]
# nVidia Geforce 8400 GS & firewire controller & HD audio controller
pci = [ '01:00.0','02:01.0','00:1b.0' ]
vcpus=2
# No passthrough
#gfx_passthru=0
# onboard
#gfx_passthru=1
# nvidia
gfx_passthru=2

# Can only pass through one usb device at a time
usb=1
# USB Unity Green Mouse
#usbdevice = 'host:1bcf:0007'
# USB A1pro Black Mouse
usbdevice = 'host:15d9:0a41'
# USB Keyboard
#usbdevice = 'host:0603:00f2'
# USB Sony IC Recorder
#usbdevice = 'host:054c:0271'
# USB Lexmark X1270 Color Printer
#usbdevice = 'host:043d:00ff'
# USB Lexmark X1270 Photo Scanner
#usbdevice = 'host:043d:007d'
# USB Lexmark X1270 Generic Hub
#usbdevice = 'host:043d:007a'

All-in-one script to call the above-mentioned scripts and HVM config:

#!/bin/sh

# Stops the BOINC Core Client
service boinc-client stop

# Passthrough NVIDIA graphics card
/etc/xen/scripts/passthru-nvidia.sh
# Passthrough Firewire port
/etc/xen/scripts/passthru-firewire.sh
# Passthrough Audio Controller
/etc/xen/scripts/passthru-audio.sh

ls -ltr /sys/bus/pci/drivers/pci-stub/
sleep 10

# Start Windows XP guest domain
xm create winxphome32

this is not a comprehensive guide however it should work with a little common sense