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#virtio

canoodle@nerdpol.ch
SilouettE

GNU Linux Debian 10 - kvm-qemu virtualization host - sata disk access performance problems with Windows 7 64Bit vm guest (only 32Bit works with virtio drivers crystal disk benchmark looking good)

  1. first off the praise:
    • kvm-qemu is a high performance nicely scriptable virtualization system
    • if it works, it can do pretty things 🙂
    • especially like the x11 forwarded virt-manager gui over ssh (yes it is a bit slow… but simplicity at it’s best)
  2. now the critique:
    • it does not feel very user friendly X-D
    • why is thin provisioning not the disk-saving default option?
      • or at least should be possible for the user to select this option in virt-manager
    • do not drop windows 7 support just yet… many virtualization systems such as VirtualBox are actually intended to run “outdated” OS on newer hardware for the sake of getting programs to run, that are incompatible with recent OS.
    • please double check that virtio 64Bit drivers actually work under win 7 64bit (home, pro and ultimate)
<span style="color: #00ffff;">
hostnamectl</span>; # host is
           Chassis: desktop
  Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)
            Kernel: Linux 4.19.0-17-amd64
      Architecture: x86-64

# hardware used
<span style="color: #00ffff;">cat /proc/cpuinfo |head</span>
processor   : 0
vendor_id   : AuthenticAMD
cpu family  : 23
model       : 113
model name  : AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor
stepping    : 0
microcode   : 0x8701021
cpu MHz     : 1870.721
cache size  : 512 KB
physical id : 0

<span style="color: #00ffff;">dmidecode | less</span>
Manufacturer: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
Product Name: Pro WS 565-ACE
Version: Rev X.0x
<span style="color: #00ffff;">qemu-system-x86_64 --version</span>
QEMU emulator version 3.1.0 (Debian 1:3.1+dfsg-8+deb10u8)
Copyright (c) 2003-2018 Fabrice Bellard and the QEMU Project developers

# installed software
<span style="color: #00ffff;">dpkg -l|grep virt</span>
ii  gir1.2-libvirt-glib-1.0:amd64        1.0.0-1                                 amd64        GObject introspection files for the libvirt-glib library
ii  libgovirt-common                     0.3.4-3.1                               all          GObject-based library to access oVirt REST API (common files)
ii  libgovirt2:amd64                     0.3.4-3.1                               amd64        GObject-based library to access oVirt REST API
ii  libvirglrenderer0:amd64              0.7.0-2                                 amd64        virtual GPU for KVM virtualization
ii  libvirt-clients                      5.0.0-4+deb10u1                         amd64        Programs for the libvirt library
ii  libvirt-daemon                       5.0.0-4+deb10u1                         amd64        Virtualization daemon
ii  libvirt-daemon-system                5.0.0-4+deb10u1                         amd64        Libvirt daemon configuration files
ii  libvirt-glib-1.0-0:amd64             1.0.0-1                                 amd64        libvirt GLib and GObject mapping library
ii  libvirt0:amd64                       5.0.0-4+deb10u1                         amd64        library for interfacing with different virtualization systems
ii  ovmf                                 0~20181115.85588389-3+deb10u3           all          UEFI firmware for 64-bit x86 virtual machines
ii  python3-libvirt                      5.0.0-1                                 amd64        libvirt Python 3 bindings
ii  qemu-kvm                             1:3.1+dfsg-8+deb10u8                    amd64        QEMU Full virtualization on x86 hardware
ii  virt-manager                         1:2.0.0-3                               all          desktop application for managing virtual machines
ii  virt-viewer                          7.0-2                                   amd64        Displaying the graphical console of a virtual machine
ii  virtinst                             1:2.0.0-3                               all          Programs to create and clone virtual machines

something is pretty off here.

it all starts of with virsh-manager not detect Windows 7 iso correctly, and having to chose it manually enabling the legacy checkbox.

the idea was to install:

actually managed to install it once… but when trying to install the updates, things became very very slow aka stuck.

next try… it won’t go over this screen: “windows files are being extracted 0%” just sits there doing nothing.

what worked: virtio & 32Bit

https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/archive-virtio/virtio-win-0.1.173-4/

the only success that can be reported is for 32Bit! (virtio-win-0.1.173.iso being the last version supporting Windows 7)

now the performance is pretty decent X-D (of course this is all RAM cached stuff)

no chance to select any 64Bit drivers!? in any virtio iso!?

#linux #gnu #gnulinux #opensource #administration #sysops #windows #kvm #qemu #debian #virtualization #virtio

Originally posted at: https://dwaves.de/2021/09/15/gnu-linux-debian-10-kvm-qemu-virtualization-host-sata-disk-access-performance-problems-with-windows-7-64bit-vm-guest-only-32bit-works-with-virtio-drivers-crystal-disk-benchmark-looking-good/