Re: [Xen-devel] Re: [patch 14/21] Xen-paravirt: Add XEN config options and disableunsupported config options.

2007-02-17 Thread Rik van Riel

Dan Hecht wrote:

Yes, and regardless of whether you run your periodic timer slower than 
HZ, calibrating time in a VM is always difficult due to the fact the 
kernel is time sharing the physical cpu.  Why not just ask the 
underlying hypervisor?


Upstream Xen does just that.

I'm guessing we'll want something similar for KVM paravirt.

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Re: [Xen-devel] Re: [patch 14/21] Xen-paravirt: Add XEN config options and disableunsupported config options.

2007-02-16 Thread Dan Hecht

On 02/16/2007 01:51 PM, Zachary Amsden wrote:

Keir Fraser wrote:

On 16/2/07 17:46, "Jeremy Fitzhardinge" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

  

Keir Fraser wrote:


This initial patchset does not include save/restore support anyway, so in
fact it would be consistent to have CONFIG_PREEMPT configurable. I'm sure
that we are going to have some nasty bugs to fix up as a result, but we
can't fix them until we find them! Then we can convert our save/restore code
to use the freezer before submitting it for inclusion.
  

OK.  So that makes the only config restriction the 100Hz ticks.


We can extend the Xen timer interface quite easily and get rid of this one
too. In fact it doesn't *much* matter if the CONFIG_HZ differs from the Xen
ticker rate -- we modified the Linux timer ISR to handle timer interrupts at
arbitrary times already. The only drawback is that jiffies updates in burts
if CONFIG_HZ is higher than the actual tick rate, and this can affect some
calibration constants and cause Linux to print out some weird values at
start-of-day.
  


That's why we'd very much like to get a get_cpu_speed paravirt-op 
implemented.  I think this would be useful to work around these problems 
for Xen as well.





Yes, and regardless of whether you run your periodic timer slower than 
HZ, calibrating time in a VM is always difficult due to the fact the 
kernel is time sharing the physical cpu.  Why not just ask the 
underlying hypervisor?


Really, Time is one of those areas where paravirtualization makes a lot 
of sense, no matter how much virtualization hardware you have crammed 
into your cpu

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Re: [Xen-devel] Re: [patch 14/21] Xen-paravirt: Add XEN config options and disableunsupported config options.

2007-02-16 Thread Zachary Amsden

Keir Fraser wrote:

On 16/2/07 17:46, "Jeremy Fitzhardinge" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

  

Keir Fraser wrote:


This initial patchset does not include save/restore support anyway, so in
fact it would be consistent to have CONFIG_PREEMPT configurable. I'm sure
that we are going to have some nasty bugs to fix up as a result, but we
can't fix them until we find them! Then we can convert our save/restore code
to use the freezer before submitting it for inclusion.
  

OK.  So that makes the only config restriction the 100Hz ticks.



We can extend the Xen timer interface quite easily and get rid of this one
too. In fact it doesn't *much* matter if the CONFIG_HZ differs from the Xen
ticker rate -- we modified the Linux timer ISR to handle timer interrupts at
arbitrary times already. The only drawback is that jiffies updates in burts
if CONFIG_HZ is higher than the actual tick rate, and this can affect some
calibration constants and cause Linux to print out some weird values at
start-of-day.
  


That's why we'd very much like to get a get_cpu_speed paravirt-op 
implemented.  I think this would be useful to work around these problems 
for Xen as well.


Zach
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Re: [Xen-devel] Re: [patch 14/21] Xen-paravirt: Add XEN config options and disableunsupported config options.

2007-02-16 Thread Jeremy Fitzhardinge
Keir Fraser wrote:
> We can extend the Xen timer interface quite easily and get rid of this one
> too. In fact it doesn't *much* matter if the CONFIG_HZ differs from the Xen
> ticker rate -- we modified the Linux timer ISR to handle timer interrupts at
> arbitrary times already. The only drawback is that jiffies updates in burts
> if CONFIG_HZ is higher than the actual tick rate, and this can affect some
> calibration constants and cause Linux to print out some weird values at
> start-of-day.
>   

I was wondering what would happen if we tried that.  I guess its
equivalent to having stolen time between each Xen tick.

J
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Re: [Xen-devel] Re: [patch 14/21] Xen-paravirt: Add XEN config options and disableunsupported config options.

2007-02-16 Thread Keir Fraser
On 16/2/07 17:46, "Jeremy Fitzhardinge" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Keir Fraser wrote:
>> This initial patchset does not include save/restore support anyway, so in
>> fact it would be consistent to have CONFIG_PREEMPT configurable. I'm sure
>> that we are going to have some nasty bugs to fix up as a result, but we
>> can't fix them until we find them! Then we can convert our save/restore code
>> to use the freezer before submitting it for inclusion.
> OK.  So that makes the only config restriction the 100Hz ticks.

We can extend the Xen timer interface quite easily and get rid of this one
too. In fact it doesn't *much* matter if the CONFIG_HZ differs from the Xen
ticker rate -- we modified the Linux timer ISR to handle timer interrupts at
arbitrary times already. The only drawback is that jiffies updates in burts
if CONFIG_HZ is higher than the actual tick rate, and this can affect some
calibration constants and cause Linux to print out some weird values at
start-of-day.

 -- Keir

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Re: [Xen-devel] Re: [patch 14/21] Xen-paravirt: Add XEN config options and disableunsupported config options.

2007-02-16 Thread Jeremy Fitzhardinge
Keir Fraser wrote:
> This initial patchset does not include save/restore support anyway, so in
> fact it would be consistent to have CONFIG_PREEMPT configurable. I'm sure
> that we are going to have some nasty bugs to fix up as a result, but we
> can't fix them until we find them! Then we can convert our save/restore code
> to use the freezer before submitting it for inclusion.
OK.  So that makes the only config restriction the 100Hz ticks.

J
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