[SOLVED] Fedora 13 Virtualisation

[jafar]

Hi guys
Wondering if one of you KVM / RH virtualization experts can help me out
here.
I am using Fedora 13 as the VM Host (dom0) and I want to host 2 CentOS
5.4 virtual machines on it.
All virtualisation packages have been installed.

The issue now is when I try to create a host, either via virt-manager or
virt-install, it is very very slow.
It is going to take about 3 hours for the install to be done.
I have tried few different things:
1. Copied the ISO file directly to the HD of the machine and use
virt-manager to read that ISO, slow.
2. Ran the web service on the host and copied the content of the ISO
file to it and run the install using the http:// path. Still slow.

I have read that you may need the -accelerate switch, but according to
virt-install man page, this switch is now deprecated.

Machine spec:
ACER Veriton S661 (Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, E6750)
6GB RAM
2TB HDD


Packages installed:
python-virtinst
libvirt
qemu-kvm
virt-manager
virt-viewer

The kernel modules are running:
[root@f13 ~]# modprobe -l | grep kvm
kernel/arch/x86/kvm/kvm.ko
kernel/arch/x86/kvm/kvm-intel.ko
kernel/arch/x86/kvm/kvm-amd.ko
[root@f13 ~]#

Intel VT is enabled on the BIOS:
[root@f13 ~]# grep -i vmx /proc/cpuinfo
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca
cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall
nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good aperfmperf pni dtes64
ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm tpr_shadow vnmi
flexpriority
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca
cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall
nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good aperfmperf pni dtes64
ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm tpr_shadow vnmi
flexpriority
[root@f13 ~]#

Any ideas?

[gid99]

Not sure if it will help in your case,

I split my drives so that my kvm image files are on a separate drive from my OS and also made another disk for my swap partition. I used ext4.

I also have 7200RPM drives with a large cache. I split my virtual system drives from my OS drive and my swap to hopefully reduce IO.

Add the system monitor to your panel (gnome) and go to preferences and click the checkbox for all items (make sure all virtualization is off). Then start up one of your machines.
What gets pegged?

Also, check out "udisk", apparently new (and I have not tried it)
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F13_o..._release_notes
Apparently installed by default
root@yoursystem # udisks --help

I once mistakenly installed a virtual machine on the same drive as my OS, and it was miserable for the machine.

Dag Wieers has something called "spew" that's supposed to test I/O, disk performance and perhaps some other things.
I'd research to see if this is still current and useful BEFORE installing:
http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/spew/
Apparently 1.0.8 is the most current, and Dag Wieers version is 1.0.4 -- so his version is a tad old.
http://spew.berlios.de/ apparently has the latest version
THE ABOVE IS NOT PROVIDED WITH ANY WARRANTY - your own risk... I have not tried it.

I welcome other's input, I may likely have missed some obvious things, I'm hungry and need to make dinner.

[jafar]

Thanks. I have solved my problem.
It is a BIOS issue. I have enabled VT-d, but I also need to disable Intel's Trusted Execution module from the BIOS to let kvm_intel module loads properly.
Once I did that, all good