On Wednesday 04 October 2006 10:48, Jeff Dickens wrote: > John Nielsen wrote: > > On Tuesday 03 October 2006 12:58, Jeff Dickens wrote: > >> I have some Freebsd systems that are running as VMware guests. I'd like > >> to configure their kernels so as to minimize the overhead on the VMware > >> host system. After reading and partially digesting the white paper on > >> timekeeping in VMware virtual machines > >> (http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vmware_timekeeping.pdf) it appears that I > >> might want to make some changes. > >> > >> Has anyone addressed this issue? > > > > I haven't read the white paper (yet; thanks for the link), but I've had > > good results with recent -STABLE VM's running under ESX server 3. Some > > thoughts: > > > > As I do on most of my installs, I trimmed down GENERIC to include just > > the drivers I use. In this case that was mpt for the disk and le for the > > network (although I suspect forcing the VM to present e1000 hardware and > > then using the em driver would work as well if not better). > > > > The VMware tools package that comes with ESX server does a poor job of > > getting itself to run, but it can be made to work without too much > > difficulty. Don't use the port, run the included install script to > > install the files, ignore the custom network driver and compile the > > memory management module from source (included). If using X.org, use the > > built-in vmware display driver, and copy the vmmouse driver .o file from > > the VMware tools dist to the appropriate dir under /usr/X11. Even though > > the included file is for X.org 6.8, it works fine with 6.9/7.0 (X.org 7.1 > > should include the vmmouse driver.) Run the VMware tools config script > > from a non-X terminal (and you can ignore the warning about running it > > remotely if you're using SSH), so it won't mess with your X display (it > > doesn't do anything not accomplished above). Then run the rc.d script to > > start the VMware tools. > > > > I haven't noticed any timekeeping issues so far. > > > > JN > > _______________________________________________ > > What is the advantage of using the "e1000 hardware", and is this > documented somewhere? I got the vxn network driver working without > issues; I just had to edit the .vxn file manually: I'm using the free > VMware server V1 rather than the ESX server. > > ethernet0.virtualDev="vmxnet"
Not documented, just my opinion that the em(4) driver is probably a better performer than le(4), and the former has awareness of media speeds, etc. I actually haven't tried using the vxn network driver yet. My view could be tainted by old experiences with VMware Workstation 3 and the lnc(4) driver, though. > I've got timekeeping running stably on these. I turn on time sync via > vmware tools in the .vmx file: > > tools.syncTime = "TRUE" > > and in the guest file's rc.conf start ntpd with flags "-Aqgx &" so it > just syncs once at boot and exits. > > I'm not using X on these. They're supposed to be clean & lean systems > to run such things as djbdns and qmail. And they do work well. > > My main goal is to reduce the background load on the VMware host system > so that it isn't spending more time than it has to simulating interrupt > controllers for the guests. I'm wondering about the "disable ACPI" boot > option. I suppose I first should figure out how to even roughly measure > the effect of any changes I might make. So far I'm just experimenting with FreeBSD VM's in my spare time. Our only "production" VM's at the moment are Windows and a Fedora instance or two. It'd be nice if there were a central repository for some of these tips and other info. (Maybe there are threads on VMTN, I haven't really looked). JN _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
