VMI support in lenny kernel 2.6.26-2-686
Justin The Cynical
Does a stock 2.6.26-2-686 32-bit lenny kernel have vmi support compiled in?
Longer version:
I make heavy use of VMWare Server 2 on a 64-bit lenny host, 32-bit guests.
I was looking at ways to improve performance and noticed that VMI
Paravirtualization was not turned on. I did some searching and found
that VMWare disables VMI support via a setting in the VMX file,
depending on the guest OS selection.
I did some more searching and found this page:
http://www.electricrelaxation.com/2007/05/27/building-a-vmi-enabled-kernel-for-debian-lenny-testing
According to this, if VMI is enabled, I should see the following in dmesg:
vmi: registering clock event vmi-timer. mult=11715026 shift=22
Booting paravirtualized kernel on vmi
vmi: registering clock source khz=2793080
Time: vmi-timer clocksource has been installed.
After adding the line manually in the vmx file and verifying that it
stuck around after a restart, I'm not seeing the above listed lines in
dmesg.
I pulled the needed packages for compiling a kernel and checked the
menuconfig file, VMI is enabled per that file.
So either I'm missing something, or the stock 32-bit kernel doesn't have
it already compiled. I would normally compile and try, but I don't want
to potentially break a perfectly good working system, and it's almost
5AM my time and I need to get to sleep.
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Justin The Cynical
> Short version:
>
> Does a stock 2.6.26-2-686 32-bit lenny kernel have vmi support compiled in?
*snip*
Figured this out today.
Apparently VMWare, in their infinite wisdom, made VMI support depend on
the guest OS selection. As etch (the latest supported debian version)
didn't apparently have VMI support in the kernel, it's disabled and not
selectable.
Adding the VMI line in the VM config file didn't work for two reasons:
If I touched the VM config via the UI, it removed the added line as long
as it was set to debian4
I forgot to shut down the VM after making a change to the file. Note
for those who may wonder: Rebooting the guest alone doesn't work.
So, changing the guest OS setting to ubuntu and enabling the VMI option
let it work and I see the correct lines in dmesg now.
I don't know if it's due to the restarts or the setting changes, but my
load average dropped from an average of 4 to less than 2. Will have to
wait and see if it's stable with the setting at ubuntu (I don't know if
that option makes any real difference, or if it does, if ubuntu is close
enough to debian for it to work correctly).